Study the effect of nano-alumina particles on physical-mechanical properties of UV cured epoxy acrylate via nano-indentation

In this research, an epoxy acrylate resin was synthesized, and then the resin was used along with different multifunctional acrylate monomers and cured under UV radiation. To investigate the effect of nano-particles on some of the physical and mechanical properties, i.e. scratch, hardness and gloss, of the UV cured resins, a suspension of nano-alumina in tripropyleneglycoldiacrylate (TPGDA) was included in the formulations. The scratch resistance was determined by pencil hardness test and nano-scratch tester (NST). The hardness of prepared films was evaluated by using konig hardness tester and nano-indenter. The results showed that the visibility of scratch decreased when the nano-particles were used. It seems that the self-healing property of the films improved in the presence of nano-particles. The hardness of the samples with nano-particles was found to be less than that of the samples without any nano-particles. It was also observed that the gloss of films with the nano-particles remained high. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.