Fabrication and characterization of the mechanical properties of multi-walled carbon nanotube-reinforced epoxy resins by e-beam irradiation

In this study, the multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWNT) were reinforced to epoxy resin as fabrication of epoxy/MWNT nanocomposites by electron beam (e-beam) curing. An attempt is made to disperse MWNT into diglycidyl ether of bisphenol A (DGEBA) as epoxy resins, using triarylsulfonium hexafluoroantimonate (TASHFA) as an initiator. E-beam irradiation effect on the curing of the epoxy resin was investigated in oxygen and nitrogen atmospheres at room temperature. The flexural modulus was measured by a universal testing machine (UTM). Here, the flexural modulus factor exhibits an upper limit at 0.3 wt% MWNT. The dynamic mechanical and thermal properties of the irradiated epoxy resins were characterized using DMA, DSC and TGA machines. DMA curves of the storage modulus revealed an increase with an increasing MWNT content and radiation dose. However, the Tg curve decreased as a function of the increasing MWNT content and radiation dose. The thermal properties of the TGA and DSC data were improved by increasing the content of the MWNT and the radiation dose. Likewise, the thermal properties were stabilized by increasing the amount of initiator and irradiating the resins in a nitrogen atmosphere.