EUROPEAN CONGRESS AND EXHIBITION ON ADVANCED MATERIALS AND PROCESSES - EUROMAT 2021

The development of strong yet light fiber reinforced polymer (FRP) structures has attracted increased attention over the past few years. Epoxy foaming systems as core materials for carbon or glass fiber reinforced structures (CFRPs or GFRPs) find applications as primary or secondary structures in transportation, sports, and energy fields. Significant efforts have concentrated in increasing the performance of foaming core structures through nano-enabling of multifunctionality.
The presented work focuses on the enhancement of the intrinsic properties of polymer epoxy foams, investigating the effect of different nanoparticles on the resulting materials of the systems in terms of mechanical performance, flammability, water permeability and thermal & electrical conductivity. Three different density epoxy foam systems have been employed in combination with varying concentrations of nano-reinforcements such as multiwall carbon nanotubes and montmorillonite nanoclays, to investigate their effect on the examined properties. For each system presented, a unique saturation point has been identified as the optimum nano-reinforcement concentration. Along with dedicated test for each property under investigation, Scanning Electron Microscopy has been performed to investigate the morphological properties of the nano-enabled foams. Results will be in alignment with the current market demand for light multifunctional core materials for fiber reinforced polymer structures.
A numerical model to capture the foaming process with the inclusion of nano-reinforcements will be presented, to elucidate the mechanism of formation in an attempt to predict the cell generation and growth along with nano-reinforcements nucleation and arrangement within the foaming structure. This will further aid the development of the bespoke systems to achieve the desired properties since microcellular homogeneous foams exhibit superior properties compared to nonhomogeneous counterparts.
This work was co-funded by the European Regional Development Fund and the Republic of Cyprus through the Research and Innovation Foundation (Project: POST-DOC/0916/0015).