Thermo-Mechanical and Mechanical properties of Epoxy/CNT Composite modified by Hollow Glass Microspheres

Products made of syntactic foams are replacing many conventional materials due to several desirable properties and commendable low density. To overcome its limitation in application it has been hybridized with CNT in this work to achieve multifunctional, mechanical and thermo-mechanical enhanced composites. It is found that when HGM is added to epoxy/CNT matrix compressive strength increases till 5% to a maximum value of 176MPa at 5wt% of HGM and beyond this volume of HGM strength decreases considerably. Storage modulus increases with increase in HGM volume due to increased restriction in polymer chain mobility of epoxy matrix. Microstructure images of fractured surface of the composites evident the good dispersion of HGM and CNT in the epoxy matrix. It can also be seen in SEM images that many microcracks generated are discontinuous and hence increasing the stability of composite in plastic region