Development of Epoxy-polyester Nanocomposite Materials with Improved Physical and Mechanical Properties for Increasing Transport Vehicle Reliability

Abstract

The significant attention is paid to the development of new composite materials which can be widely used in the manufacturing and repairing details and their components in different branches of industry including water transport. Intensity of cargo transportation by the water transport, an increase in the frequency of loading operations, their operation under the influence of aggressive environments put forward requirements for the improvement of indicators of resource saving of vehicle units and increasing the inter-resource period of work. In this context, the epoxy composite materials are one of the most promising materials, which meet the requirements of modern transport industry, due to their performance characteristics, which in most cases are better than traditional metals and alloys. Therefore, in the work, the physical and mechanical properties of composite materials with nanodispersed additives based on the epoxy-polyester matrix, were studied. An oxidized nanoparticle additive and pyrogenic silicon dioxide were used as fillers. It was found that epoxy-polyester composites are characterized by improved properties at significant amount of the oxidized nanoparticle additive. An optimal ratio of the epoxy-polyester binder and additive was 100:0.06-0.08 pts. wt. It was ascertained that the introduction of pyrogenic silicon dioxide leads to a decrease in values of investigated properties of composite materials. In particular, the fracture surface of epoxy-polyester materials was analyzed with the method of optical microscopy. It was stated that composite materials filled with pyrogenic silicon dioxide were characterized by high residual stresses. The presence of low amount of fracture lines on the surface of composite materials filled with nanodispersed additive was revealed. Therefore, composite materials with nanofiller are characterized by higher resistance for fracture and impact loads.