Comportement à l'impact des composites fibres de verre/Epoxy modifié copolymère à bloc

Abstract

Epoxy resins are widely used in the design of fibre composite materials. This increasing use finds its reason in the fact that these materials have excellent mechanical and thermal properties. Playing on its chemical composition and curing speed, it’s possible to vary the mechanical properties from the extreme flexibility to high rigidity. However, the inherent toughness of a highly crosslinked epoxy is relatively low. It therefore seems desirable for high impact resistance applications, to improve the toughness, without affecting the other usual properties of this polymer. Recent studies have shown a significant improvement in impact resistance of epoxy in the presence of block copolymers. Our work aims to investigate the effect of triblock copolymer-based acrylate (Nanostrength) on the impact resistance of glass / epoxy composite. An experimental device, called "drop tower" is used to perform impact tests on composites with or without Nanostrength. Dynamic mechanical analyses (DMA) were conducted, first to characterize the effect of addition of Nanostrength on the thermomechanical properties, but also to establish a correlation between thermomechanical properties and impact resistance. Different observation tools, such as optical observation, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and atomic force microscopy (AFM) were used to visualize the material damages. Adding Nanostrength in epoxy leads to the improvement of impact resistance of the composite material. A slight decrease in the storage modulus and glass transition temperature have been observed. Microscopic observations shown that the different failure modes of the composite are mainly delamination, fibres breakage and matrix cracking. It was also observed that the presence of Nanostrength role as cracks deflect.