Mechanical properties of glass-fiber reinforced epoxy composites filled with Al2O3 particles

ABSTRACT: An experimental study has been carried out to investigate the mechanical properties of glass-fiber reinforced epoxy composite filled with different proportions of Al2O3 particles. As a comparison, the mechanical properties of unfilled glass-fiber reinforced epoxy composite were also evaluated under identical test conditions. The results showed that while ultimate tensile strength and shear strength of the composites decreased with increasing Al2O3 particles content, flexural strength increased with the Al2O3 particles content of up to 10 % beyond which it decreased. Compared with the flexural properties of the unfilled glass-fiber reinforced epoxy composite, with the addition of 10wt % of Al2O3 particle in the matrix, flexural strength, and flexural modulus were increased by 33 and 78%, respectively. KEY WORDS: polymer matrix, glass fibers, particle-reinforcement, mechanical properties