Hardness, wear behavior and processing time of diluent and non-diluent nanocomposite laminates manufactured by vacuum infusion technique

The manufacturing of nanocomposites using the Vacuum Resin Infusion (VRI) technique can be considered a challenging task. The reason for this challenge is the high viscosity of the nanofilled resin. For large composite laminates, the nanofilled resin may be cured before complete mold filling, and thus can be considered as a waste of money. In this study, different weight fractions of TiO2 nanoparticles (0.25 wt. % and 0.5 wt. %) were added to epoxy resin. Also, different weight fractions of ethanol (0.5 wt. % and 1 wt. %) were added to both unfilled and nanofilled epoxy. The processing time, hardness, and wear behavior of the composite laminates were investigated. It was found that the addition of TiO2 nanoparticles improved the hardness and wear behavior of composite laminates but the processing time was high. Also, results showed that adding a small amount of ethanol (0.5 wt. %) and 0.25 wt. % of TiO2 nanoparticles to epoxy reinforced with chopped/woven glass fiber not only reduced the processing time but also improved the hardness and wear resistance as compared to neat composite laminates. Moreover, adding 0.5 wt. % of ethanol and 0.25 wt. % of TiO2 nanoparticles to woven E-glass/epoxy (WN0.25E0.5) gives hardness and wear resistance close to that obtained with woven E-glass/epoxy filled with 0.5 wt. % of TiO2 nanoparticles (WN0.5). It is economical to manufacture WN0.25E0.5 rather than WN0.5 as the cost and processing time of WN0.25E0.5 is lower than WN0.5.