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Go to Editorial ManagerThis article provides an overview of the studies that have been conducted on the characteristics of epoxy resins containing various types of silica nanoparticles and microparticles, as well as their performance in the industrial application of functionally graded materials (FGMs). Silica nanoparticles and microparticles are used to create epoxy resins in order to improve various properties, such as thermal stability, adhesiveness, electrical conductivity, strength, modulus, and toughness. This review examines the literature that has been published in the last decade, compares the results, focuses on the mechanical and thermal properties, and discusses the changes that have resulted in improvements in those properties. Previous experimental findings are presented and contrasted to demonstrate the extent to which silica filler content contributes to improving the properties of composite materials. The findings reveal that the characteristics of epoxy compounds can be improved by adding a particular amount of silica particles. There is a correlation between an increase in the silica amount and an increase in the Young modulus of epoxy compounds, this correlation becomes stronger as the silica amount increases. Additionally, the tensile strength of epoxy compounds increases to a certain limit as the amount of silica nanoparticles increases. In contrast, the hardness of the material increases as the silica amount increases. The density of the material also increases steadily as the silica amount in the material increases. According to thermal analysis results from calorimetric research on epoxy–silica systems, the glass transition temperature increases as the silica amount increases.
The aim of this work is to experimentally study the influence of fiber prestress and curing temperature on the tensile and flexural properties of carbon fiber-epoxy composite. Adaptive Neuro-Fuzzy Inference System model was used to predict the effect of fiber prestress and curing temperature on the tensile strength, tensile modulus, flexural strength and flexural modulus of carbon fiber-epoxy composite. It was found that, the best membership functions for predicting the tensile strength, tensile modulus and flexural modulus are Gaussian membership functions with 4 number of membership function, and for predicting the flexural strength are generalized bell membership functions with 4 number of membership functions. From the comparison between the experimental and predicted results of carbon fiber-epoxy composite properties, it is found that the prediction results of this model show a good agreement with experimental results.
In this study, glass-filled epoxy functionally graded material (FGM) was prepared by adopting the hand lay-up method. The vertical gravity casting was used to produce a continuous variation in elastic properties. A 30 % volume fraction of glass ingredients that have mean diameter 90 µm was spread in epoxy resin ( ρ = 1050 kg/m 3 ). The mechanical properties of FGM were evaluated according to ASTM D638. Experimental results showed that a gradually relationship between Young’s modulus and volume fraction of glass particles, where the value of Young’s modulus at high concentration of glass particles was greater than that at low concentration, while the value of Poisson’s ratio at high concentration of glass particles was lower than that at low concentration. The manufacture of this FG beam is particularly important and useful in order to benefit from it in the field of various fracture tests under dynamic or cyclic loads.
In recent decades, the need for strengthening and repairing reinforced concrete structures has increasingly arisen. One common method is the use of concrete jackets. Slurry Infiltrated Fiber Concrete (SIFCON), a newly developed material, offers superior mechanical properties, making it a preferred choice for strengthening and repairing concrete structures. However, there is limited understanding of its bonding performance when used as an overlay on a Normal Strength Concrete (NSC) substrate. This study conducted a direct Shear Test (DST) to evaluate the bond performance using reinforced NSC cubes externally bonded with SIFCON jackets subjected to direct shear. Eighteen reinforced cubes were strengthened with various bonding systems to investigate how different factors affect the bond performance between the NSC substrate and SIFCON overlay. The parameters studied included surface preparation methods, binder types, jacket configurations, bonding conditions (fresh overlay on hardened substrate and hardened overlay on hardened substrate), dowel placement, and bonding mechanisms. The results show that using bonding agents significantly improved bond strength, with epoxy proving more effective than latex. Specimens prepared by chipping showed better bonding performance compared to those prepared through diamond cutting. Chipping increased bond strength by 8.91% to 13.84% over diamond cutting in the case of fresh SIFCON overlay on hardened substrate. Using dowels in the bonding systems also improved bond performance by 10.89% to 16.97%. Applying jackets to three sides instead of two increased the ultimate failure load by 31.76% when dowels were used in both the two-sided and three-sided strengthened samples, and by 35.45% in the absence of dowels in both types of strengthened specimens. The cast-in-situ specimens demonstrated superiority over those strengthened with precast jacket layers.
This paper presents the effect of fiber orientation angle on the stress intensity factor SIF for carbon epoxy composite plates with single-edge, center, and inclined cracks of varying lengths under tensile load. The stress intensity factor and shape factor were calculated individually for each case, with nine different fiber orientation angles computed using the extended finite element method XFEM concepts. It is found the stress intensity factor increases with increasing crack lengths while the shape factor decreases. In the case of single edge cracks, the SIF increases in the average value reached (173 %) for composite plates with different fiber orientation angles, while in the case of the center crack, the average value of SIF reaches (81 %). It was observed in this study that the increases in stress intensity factor and the decreases in the shape factor with different crack lengths were more stable in the composite plate with a fiber orientation angle of 75°. The higher values of SIF at an angle of 75° are because of the high probability of fiber slippage at 75° due to induced shear stresses in addition to the tensile stresses at the fiber-matrix interface. As a result, the crack tip has a high-stress intensity factor.