Assessment of mechanical and healing behaviors of glass fibers-epoxy composite containing the microcapsules with the nanocomposite shell

In the current study, the effect of adding the encapsulated healing agent with neat polymeric and nanocomposite shells on the mechanical-healing features of glass fibers/epoxy composite under various loads was investigated. Therefore, the microcapsules with urea-formaldehyde (UF) nanocomposite shell containing the various weight fraction of silica nanoparticles (0, 1, 2, 3) were synthesized. After that, the flexural, tensile, and interlaminar shear strength (ILSS) samples were destructed by using the quasi-static penetration method with the damaging force of 500, 1050, and 2900 N, respectively. The maximum healing efficiency in the flexural loads belonged to the composite with the 3 wt% nanosilica on the surface of microcapsules, which was 83.9%. Also, it was found the increment in the weight fraction of silica nanoparticles had a negligible effect on the healing ability of composite under tensile loading. Achieving 135.8% healing efficiency in the composite with the 2 wt% nanosilica under the shear loads can be one of the most important findings in this work.

Automated summary

This study investigated the effect of adding encapsulated healing agent with neat polymeric and nanocomposite shells on the mechanical-healing features of glass fibers/epoxy composite under various loads. The results showed that the composite with 3 wt% nanosilica on the surface of microcapsules achieved the highest healing efficiency of 83.9% under flexural loads. Increasing the weight fraction of silica nanoparticles had a negligible effect on the healing ability of the composite under tensile loading. The most important finding in this work was the achievement of 135.8% healing efficiency in the composite with 2 wt% nanosilica under shear loads.