Study Of Preparation And Performances Of Basalt Fiber/Organo-Montmorillonite/Epoxy Nanocomposites

The durability of fiber reinforced polymer (FRP) composites in an aggressive environment is one of the main concerns regarding its application in civil engineering. While the durability of FRP composites during the service life in civil engineering depends on the diffusion of water molecules and water uptake to a great extent. In view of this, the paper applied the method of mechanical agitation method to mix organo- montmorillonite into epoxy matrix in nano scale, where the nano- flake structure of montmorillonite can improve the mechanics performances of the resin matix and FRP composites, and at the same time, reduce the rate of the water uptake. The mofidied resin system used to manufature basalt fiber reinforced composes. The main research works and results are given as follows:Mechanical agitation and ultrasonic method were adopted to prepare montmorillonite /epoxy intercalated nanocomposites.Mechnical and thermal properties of montmorillonite /epoxy composites were investigated with different montmorillonite content systematically. As shown, the content of montmorillonite in 1% ~ 3% resulted in the best performances. Increasing the content of organo- montmorillonite (1 ~ 5%) reduced the glass transition temperature sligtly. Also, the montmorillonite /epoxy composites exhibits an improved barrier properties, indicated by reduced water diffusion coefficient.Basalt fiber reinforced epoxy resin modified by organic montmorillonite composites were prepared with the process of wet layup.The mechnical and thermal properties of composites were studied systematically. As found, the addition of montmorillonite into epoxy resin brings in improvement of the mechnical and barrier properties, remarkably. However, the glass transition temperature decreases slightly with montmorillonite content.The impact property of basalt fiber reinforced epoxy resin modified by organo- montmorillonite was investigated. The addition of organo- montmorillonite shows a positive effect on the impact property of basalt fiber reinfrorced polymer composites. Finally, ANSYS was used to model the impact process.