Investigation of the mechanical, absorption, flammability and swelling properties of graphene filled sisal/glass fiber reinforced polymer hybrid nanocomposites

Abstract

AbstractHybrid graphene filled glass/sisal fiber-reinforced epoxy nanocomposites were successfully synthesized with different weight percentages (0%, 0.25%, 0.5%, 0.75% and 1%) of graphene nanoplatelets. The objective of this study was to investigate the effect of weight fraction of graphene on the mechanical and physical properties of the hybrid glass/sisal fiber-reinforced epoxy nanocomposites such as tensile, flexural, hardness, density, void content, flammability, water absorption and thickness swelling. The hybrid nanocomposites were fabricated using the vacuum bag-assisted hand lay-up technique. Different layup sequences were achieved by changing the position of the glass/sisal fiber layers, maintaining a total of five layers in each composite. The obtained results suggested that the addition of 1% graphene nano filler into the sisal/glass hybrid composite enhanced the tensile strength by 49.7% and Young’s modulus by 60%. Among GNP reinforced hybrid composites, highest value of toughness (16 J) was found in case of the composite containing 1 wt.% GNP. However, when 0.5% of GNPs were added in the composite, the flexural strength and modulus reached a maximum of 306 MPa and 25 GPa, respectively, which are 228% and 362% greater than sisal/glass hybrid composites. The water absorption of the composite sample containing 0.5% GNPs was 4.62% lower than those of other hybrid glass/sisal fiber reinforced epoxy composite. Furthermore, addition of 0.5 wt% GNP resulted in a decrease in the burning rate of the hybrid composite from 11.22 mm/min to 7.6 mm/min and from 23.13 mm/min to 20.18 mm/min, respectively.

Keywords

• Graphene
• sisal/glass hybrid composite
• tensile and flexural properties
• water absorption
• flammability
• Ian Phillip Jones, University of Birmingham, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland