Water absorption and mechanical property of an epoxy composite coating containing unoxidized aluminum particles.

In this work, an unoxidized aluminum particle/epoxy composite coating was prepared onto the surface of the pure epoxy resin to reduce its water absorption and improve its mechanical property and low energy surface impact resistance. Unoxidized aluminum particles were prepared using arc spraying under the protection of nitrogen. The diffusion coefficient of sample began to decrease and then increased with increasing the content of aluminum particles in the composite coating. The minimum value was 2.7 × 10 −8 m 2 /s at a critical concentration of 6% of aluminum particles, 38% lower than that of pure epoxy resin. The sample with 6% aluminum particles had the maximum tensile and bending strengths of 38.9 MPa and 94.6 MPa, respectively. Aluminum particles could effectively reduce the impact of the epoxy resin suffered. The direction of the impact was changed, and avoids the micro-crack to extend unidirectionally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]