Excellent Mechanical Properties of the Silicate Glasses Modified by CeO2 and TiO2: a New Choice for High-Strength and High-Modulus Glass Fibers

High-strength-modulus glass fiber is widely used in military, transportation, electronics, chemical industry, environmental protection and other industries. In recent years, with the development of new energy, the research of high-strength-modulus glass fiber which can be applied in the large size fan blade is gradually being paid attention to. It is important to find an excellent glass component for the production of high-strength glass fibers. As is well known, silicate glass has a stable glass-forming region and mature drawing processes into fibers. In this study, to obtain enhanced mechanical properties, glasses with a composition of SiO2-Al2O3-MgO-CaO-B2O3-Fe2O3 were synthesized using TiO2 and CeO2. When the amount of TiO2 and CeO2 is less than 2 wt%, the mechanical properties increase with increases in the TiO2 and CeO2. However, as the amount of TiO2 and CeO2 increases from 2 to 3.5 wt%, the mechanical properties decrease. Co-doping with 1 wt% TiO2 and 1 wt% CeO2 was found to be the optimum approach, with a density, bending strength, compression strength, and compression modulus of 2.626 g/cm3, 108.36 MPa, 240.18 MPa, and 115.03 GPa, respectively. The optical band gap and Raman spectroscopy proved that, as long as the content of oxygen bonds reaches the maximum level, a kind of best structural stability and mechanical properties will be achieved. Hence, this high-strength-modulus silicate glass can be used to make optical fibres for military defence, wind power generation and transportation.