Impact Behavior of Fiber Reinforced Pultruded Soy-Epoxy Composites

Abstract

Fiber reinforced composites in general are brittle and exhibit poor impact and damage resistance. In the present work, the impact response of an epoxy resin system was improved by addition of a soy-based resin system. The soy-based resin was prepared by the process of transesterfication and epoxidation of regular food grade soybean oil. The curing process of the soy epoxy resin system was studied using differential scanning calorimetry. Physicochemical properties of soy-based resin polymers were studied using dynamic mechanical analysis. Glass fiber reinforced composite panels were manufactured using pultrusion process. Low velocity impact tests were performed on the pultruded panels. For the samples impacted at 20 J, the soy based resin system absorbed 16.26 J while base Epon resin absorbed 14.06 J. The experimental results were compared with finite element simulations, which employed a three-dimensional finite element model developed for impact analysis using ABAQUS finite element code. The simulation results were in good agreement with the experimental findings. The soy based composites hold great potential as environmentally friendly and low cost alternatives for structural applications like shelters and affordable housing. Copyright © 2008 American Scientific Publishers. All rights reserved.

Department(s)

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering

Second Department

Chemistry

Document Type

Article - Journal

Document Version

Citation

File Type

text

Language(s)

English

Rights

© 2008 American Scientific Publishers, All rights reserved.

Publication Date

01 Jan 2008

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