Mechanical properties of polyester as hybrid composites

Abstract EN

The aim of this work is to study the effect of zirconia, boron carbide, and their mixture with unsaturated polyester (hybrid composites) on mechanical and thermal properties of unsaturated polyester.

Results show an improvement in the hardness by 41, 38, and 21 % at 5 % ZrO2, B4C, and ZrO2 + B4C respectively, bending increasing by 193, 146, and 121 % at 1 % additives from ZrO2, B4C, and ZrO2+ B4C respectively.

Also results show an increasing in the compression strength when added 5 % from above additives and the improvement percent was 29, 22, and 19 % respectively.

The additives materials show a less effect in thermal conductivity comparing with mechanical properties, this due to that, the reinforcement materials has a low thermal conductivity.

An addition 5 % of ZrO2+ B4C shows an improvement in the weight loss by 33 %.

It is concluded that ZrO2 has the ability to improve the general properties of polymer such as, hardness, bending, and compression strength, this mechanical properties which is the highly demanded property in the polymer applications as well as B4C improves the polymer properties less than ZrO2.