Cellulose nanomaterials and basalt fibres: An approach towards light-weighting in sheet moulding compounds
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2017 International Committee on Composite Materials. All rights reserved. This study focuses on producing lighter sheet moulding compounds (SMC) composites by 1) replacing part of the heaviest component of SMC e.g. glass fibres (GF) with a small amount of cellulose nanomaterials and 2) using basalt fibres (BF) as an alternative to the traditionally used GF. In the first approach, it is found that adding 1 and 1.5 wt% cellulose nanocrystals (CNC) in the epoxy matrix of short GF/epoxy SMC composites allows removing 10 wt% of GF from typical SMC composites containing 35 wt% GF in epoxy, producing ;8% lighter composites with no compromise in tensile and flexural properties. The addition of 1 wt% CNC in 25GF/epoxy SMC composites results in increases of 15% in elastic modulus, 11% in flexural modulus and 14% in flexural strength, reaching the corresponding properties of 35GF/epoxy SMC composites. In the second approach, the feasibility of using BF as a replacement for GF in SMC composites was investigated. SMC composites with 25 wt% BF and 25 wt% GF are produced and compared in terms of fibre/matrix interfacial adhesion, cure behaviour and mechanical performance. The results show that both BF and GF have the same interfacial adhesion and curing behaviour. In addition, the tensile and flexural properties of BF SMC composites are higher or at least equal than those of GF SMC composites. The results to date indicate that replacing part of GF with CNC or substituting GF with BF can lead to lightweight SMC composites without any compromise of the properties compared to the state of the art GF/epoxy SMC.
