A study on the mechanical properties of graphene oxide/epoxy nanocomposites

The aims of this research are to elucidate the role of graphene oxide on the mechanical properties of epoxy and also to obtain an equation for the modeling of its behavior. Accordingly, graphene oxide/epoxy nanocomposite samples are fabricated using the solution casting method. Tensile, flexural, SEM and FTIR tests are conducted on epoxy and the nanocomposite samples afterwards. The obtained results show that the tensile strength of epoxy improves even at low contents of graphene oxide such that 0.3 wt.% of GO yields an improvement of approximately 11.5%. The flexural strength of epoxy is also enhanced by 5.8% with 0.5 wt.% GO. Then, it decreases due to the agglomeration with increasing the GO content. In order to predict the tensile strength of GO/epoxy nanocomposites, a modified Halpin-Tsai equation is obtained with a new introduced correction factor as K = 39.5V(f)(1.135)exp(2.9-1644.6V(f)). The obtained equation is in good agreement with the experimental data.