Synthesis and Comparative Study on the Characteristics of Silk, Aramid and E-Glass Fibre Reinforced Epoxy Composites

Chua, Ing Wei (2021) Synthesis and Comparative Study on the Characteristics of Silk, Aramid and E-Glass Fibre Reinforced Epoxy Composites. Final Year Project (Bachelor), Tunku Abdul Rahman University College.

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Abstract

The demand and usage of fibre reinforced polymer composites had experienced exponential growth in recent years due to the advancement of technology. In this study, Epikote™ Resin 828 and Baxxodur EC301 were used as the epoxy resin and hardener with the ratio of 2:1 for the matrix system. On the other hand, silk fibre, aramid fibre and E-glass fibre served as the reinforcement phase. Hand layup technique was used to fabricate the fibre reinforced composites in PTFE mould with the dimension of 179 mm X 198 mm in width and length. The reinforcement fibres were arranged unidirectionally onto the mould before pouring the epoxy resin. Also, roller was used to remove air bubbles. Curing was done at room temperature for 24 hours. The fibres were loaded in different loading levels (i.e., weight percent of 10 wt.%, 20 wt.% and 30 wt.%) to produce set of specimens to study the effect of loading levels of fibres on the mechanical and thermal properties of composites fabricated. After the curing process, the composites were cut into appropriate dimensions for the testing and characterisation techniques, namely density measurement, water absorption test, tensile test and Thermogravimetric Analysis (TGA).