Assessment of the Change in Hardness of Particulated Intraply Carbon/Aramid Reinforced Composites After UV Aging

This work examines how the hardness characteristics of intraply carbon/aramid hybrid composites are affected by UV aging and nanoclay addition. After being produced with different weight percentages of nanoclay (0%, 0.5%, 1.0%, 1.5%, 2.0%, and 3.0%), the samples were exposed to UV aging for 0, 450, and 900 hours. In comparison to unreinforced samples, nanoclay reinforcement dramatically increased the surface hardness, as demonstrated by increases of 4.69%, 17.19%, 27.73%, 31.25%, and 32.81% for 0.5%, 1.0%, 1.5%, 2.0%, and 3.0% nanoclay content, respectively, according to hardness tests. In addition, it was determined that there was an increase in the hardness value of the samples at the end of UV aging. The increase in hardness values continued as the UV aging time increased. These results indicate that nanoclay reinforcement synergistically interacts with UV-induced molecular changes to enhance surface hardness, with diminishing returns observed at higher nanoclay contents.