Evaluation of mechanical and thermal properties of epoxy composites reinforced with CaSiO3 particulate fillers

In the present numerical and experimental work, performance of epoxy composites with Wollastonite (CaSiO3) micro-particles that are systematically introduced into an epoxy matrix for reinforcement purposes is evaluated and presented. Magnetic stirrer is used to achieve homogeneous dispersion of the micro-particles into epoxy resin. The influence of CaSiO3 particles on hardness, flexural strength and impact strength was investigated. It is found that incorporation of CaSiO3 particles yield an effective improvement of the epoxy resin with a micro-particle content of 1-2 wt%. Composites reinforced with these particles showed increase in mechanical properties when compared to neat epoxy resin. Further, thermal behavior of both, neat and filler reinforced composites has been studied by Thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), to reveal the thermal stability of composites. In addition, mathematical models for hardness, flexural strength and impact strength are developed using Minitab 17 software. The developed models revealed high degree of correlation between experimental and predicted values. (c) 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Selection and peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the 2nd International Conference on Manufacturing Material Science and Engineering.