Mechanical Properties Improvement of Nanoclay Addition Epoxy 3D Orthogonal Woven Composite Material

In this study, the influence of nanoclay on mechanical properties of epoxy/3D orthogonal glass fiber woven composite was studied. The DK2 polymer-grade organic nanoclay modification composite specimen reinforced with 3D orthogonal woven fabric/epoxy was manufactured by means of Resin Infusion under Flexible Tooling (RIFT) process. Firstly, the modification mechanism with nanoclay was characterized by means of Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), X-ray diffraction (XRD) and transmission electron microscope (TEM). Secondly, as far as the tensile behavior between the fiber/matrix of the composite was concerned, the modification process was optimized by means of nonlinear least square fitting. The results show that the bonding strength between the fiber and matrix was improved and the delamination and debonding between fiber and matrix was retarded and shifted to cohesive failure of the matrix due to the nanoclay modification with respect to results from FT-IR, XRD and TEM. The tensile strength and modulus of composite were increased by 23.32 % and 16.42 % respectively due to 3 of nanoclay addition. The contact angle also shows that the dispersion effect and wettability at this state. The tensile stress-strain curve was fitted by applying nonlinear fitting. It can be concluded that there has a good modification effect with 3 wt% of nanoclay addition.