Mechanical properties of composite materials based on epoxy resin reinforced low carbon steel

Abstract EN

This work aims to prepare a composite material based on epoxy resin reinforced by fiber and dust particle from low carbon steel with various volume fractions and so, studying their effect on tensile and flexural strength.

Fibers from low carbon steel, with 0.20 mm in diameter and low carbon steel dust particles were used as reinforcement with a volume fraction of (0.8, 2.4, 4.0, 6.2, and 8.3 %).

The results showed that the tensile strength increases as volume fraction increases, for both cases.

But the reinforcement by dust particles has more tensile strength than fiber reinforcement.

For example, at volume fraction 0.8 %, the tensile strength of fiber composite was 135 MPa, whereas tensile strength of dust particles was 158 MPa.

Also the results of flexural test show that the flexural strength increases as volume fraction increases, for both cases, but in low carbon steel dust particles / epoxy composite, the flexural strength reaches a maximum value 417.23 MPa at volume fraction 8.3 %.

This value is higher than that of low carbon steel fiber / epoxy composite.