Mechanical and wear behavior of epoxy—glass fiber reinforced polymer composites infused with nano copper oxide filler

Abstract In this work, a polymer composite laminate is fabricated with randomized glass fiber mats and epoxy resin by the hand lay-up process. Aiming to improve the strength of the laminate, Copper oxide (CuO) nano particles is used as filler material, mixed with the resin at different weight fractions of 0, 1, 2 and 3%, used during the fabrication of CuO nanoparticle-filled Glass fiber reinforced polymer (GFRP) nanocomposite laminates. The primary objective is to investigate the influence of copper oxide nano particles on the mechanical performance of the nanocomposite laminates. The fabricated laminates are characterized for their physical and mechanical properties, such as mass density, porosity, water absorption, tensile strength, flexural strength, impact strength, hardness and wear resistance. The irregular crystalline structure and high surface area of CuO nanoparticles, which provides better mechanical interlocking and stress transfer within the matrix. The maximum tensile strength of 110 MPa is observed for GFRP laminate with 3% CuO nanoparticulate, which is almost 57% higher than that of laminate with 0% CuO. A significant rise of about 77% is observed in the flexural strength of the laminate with increase in CuO from 0 to 3%. Least order of wear rate around 0.1 to 0.4 g/Nkm is resulted for the laminate with 3% CuO against the variation of PV factor from 0.655 to 1.964 MPam/s. These particles helps in the distributing the applied load uniformly and prevent micro-crack formation. The quantity of CuO contributed at higher order of around 52% on the wear rate with p-value of 0.055, moderately significant than that of other parameters such as sliding speed and load.