The Effect of Hybridized Carbon Nanotubes, Silica Nanoparticles, and Core-Shell Rubber on Tensile, Fracture Mechanics and Electrical Properties of Epoxy Nanocomposites

The paper investigates the effect of adding a combination of rigid nanoparticles and core-shell rubber nanoparticles on the tensile, fracture mechanics, electrical and thermo-mechanical properties of epoxy resins. SiO2 nanoparticles, multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNT's), as rigid nanofillers, and core-shell rubber (CSR) nanoparticles, as soft nanofillers were used with bisphenol-A-based epoxy resin. Further, the rigid fillers were added systematically with core-shell rubber nanoparticles to investigate the commingled effect of rigid nanofillers and soft CSR nanoparticles. The resulting matrix will be broadly evaluated by standard methods to quantify tensile, fracture mechanics, electrical, and thermal properties. The results show that the electrical conductivity threshold is obtained at 0.075 wt. % for MWCNT-modified systems. For hybrid systems, the maximum increase of fracture toughness (218%) and fracture energy (900%) was obtained for a system containing 5 wt. % of CSR and 10 wt. % of SiO2. The analysis of the fracture surfaces revealed the information about existing toughening micro-mechanisms in the nanocomposites.