Morphology and mechanical characterization of carbon nanotubes/epoxy based material filled with hollow glass microsphere

Abstract

The hollow glass microsphere (HGM)/carbon nanotubes (CNTs)/epoxy composite foam are fabricated by solution casting of functionalized CNT and functionalized HGM-epoxy dispersion. Five weight ratio configurations (2, 4, 6, 8, and 10 wt%) of functionalized–HGMs were considered and compared with 0.1 wt% CNT/epoxy to investigate the effects of hollow micro sphere enrichment. This study investigate the effect of hollow glass microspheres (HGM) on the compressive strength and storage modulus of CNT modified epoxy resin. The results revealed that the incorporation of HGM improved the damping performance evidently and broadened damping temperature range. TEM image of the composite show a better dispersion of CNTs in epoxy matrix. SEM micrographs of composite foams are investigated to determine structure development and CNTs, HGM dispersion, with regard to experimental results, especially compression test.

Keywords

• hollow glass microsphere
• epoxy
• compressive strength
• dynamic mechanical analysis
• scanning electron microscopy
• carbon nanotubes