Tensile Properties of Polyester/Vinylester Blended Hybrid Nanocomposites Reinforced with Carbon Fibre

In the present research a polymer blended hybrid nanocomposites are prepared by mixing of two polymers i.e. polyester and vinylester reinforced with carbon fibre and filled with nanoclay. Hybrid nanocomposites was loaded with different clay weight ratios such as 0, 2, 2.5, 3, 3.5, 4, 5, 6 wt.% using priniciple of hybrid mixtures. By using hand layup technique two different systems such as blend plus clay as the first system and blend plus carbon fibre plus nanoclay is the second system. Tensile strength and tensile modulus were studied on effect of clay loading and miscibility. It was observed that dispersion of clay was uniform and also interactions between fibre and blend were also significantly improved for the second system. Nanoclay wt.% was varied with respect to the blend. It was also observed that tensile strength was increased linearly from 0 wt.% to 3.5 wt.% and then decreases for the first system whereas for the second system linearly increases from the 0 wt.% to 4 wt.% and then decreases. Tensile modulus was optimised at 3.5 wt.% for first system and at 5 wt.% for second system and the reason were attributed that addition of clay increases the modulus but excess clay produces high viscosity that makes difficult to flow the modified mixture.