Study On Flame Retardant Properties Of Montmorillonite Modified Carbon Fiber/Epoxy Resin Composites

In recent years,the application of the fibre epoxy resin composites become wilder and wilder.For example,the composites are wildly used in construction industry,machinery manufacturing industry,light industry and other industry.However,the epoxy resin of this composite has a distinct disadvantage: this kind of material is flammable.It has many limitations and dangers when the composites come into use,so it is necessary to enhance its own flame retardancy.Organic montmorilonite(MMT)is a kind of material which has the silicate with the structure of nanometer.It has the excellent advantages of mechanical property and thermal conductivity.Because MMT is the ideal flame-retardant additive,this kind of material is used to modify the carbon fiber epoxy resin composite.In this paper,as MMT was used as the additive to the carbon fiber epoxy resin composite,with the method of solution blending to prepare the montmorillonite/epoxy resin materials and montmorillonite modified carbon fiber/epoxy resin composites.An oxygen index,a cone calorimetry and a thermogravimetric(TG)analyzer were used to study the effects of flame retardancy.The tensile and bending test was used to study the effects of mechanical strength.And the scanning electron microscope was used to study the micro-morphology of combustion products.As the data shows to us,with the 3%~5% MMT add to the epoxy resin,the flame retardancy of epoxy resin is strengthened.It shows that MMT and carbon fibre can enhance the flame retardancy of the composites.The oxygen index experiment shows that the LOI of the composites with 5% MMT increase by 4.35% compared with carbon fiber epoxy resin composites.The Cone calorimetric experiment shows that the HRR of the composites with5% MMT decrease by 23.2% compared with carbon fiber epoxy resin composites;the SPR of the composites with 3% MMT decrease by 31% compared with carbon fiber epoxy resin composites.The scanning electron microscope(SEM)shows that MMT has the ability of promoting the charring ability of the carbon fiber epoxy resin composites after combustion.