Article ID | Journal | Published Year | Pages | File Type |
---|---|---|---|---|
1466268 | Composites Part A: Applied Science and Manufacturing | 2013 | 10 Pages |
The soft modifiers added to improve the fracture toughness of epoxies generally deteriorate their mechanical properties. Hence, oxidized multi-walled carbon nanotubes (O-CNTs) were added to the epoxy modified with reactive oligomer. The NCO terminated reactive oligomer acts as a cross-linker between the O-CNTs and the OH groups of the epoxies. The impact strengths of the 15 wt.% oligomer modified epoxy containing 0.5 wt.% of O-CNTs at room temperature (RT) and cryogenic temperature (CT) are enhanced by 23.6% and 69.5% compared to that of the unmodified epoxy. In addition to increasing fracture toughness, the tensile strength (TS) of the modified epoxy/O-CNTs at CT is found to be 91.7 MPa, which is comparable to that of the unmodified epoxy (92.1 MPa). Hence, the attachment of O-CNTs to the reactive oligomer modified epoxy can be an efficient approach to toughen epoxy resins without compromising their tensile properties.