Effect of Nanoclay Addition on the Hygrothermal Durability of Glass/Epoxy and Fiber Metal Laminates

This article investigated the effect of adding montmorillonite nanoclay on the hygrothermal durability of glass/epoxy (GE) composites and fiber metal laminates (FMLs). Experimental results indicated that the addition of nanoclay to both GE composites and FMLs increases water absorption, but reduces diffusivity as compared with the neat specimens. The flexural strength, flexural stiffness and impact properties of GE composites were negatively affected by hygrothermal aging and decreased by 24.76 %, 18.98 %, and 9.53 %, respectively, while these values for the aged FMLs were only 10.05 %, 4.40 %, and 4.14 %, respectively. It was also found that the addition of nanoclay can enhance the flexural and impact properties of both laminate types especially GE composites in both the pristine and post-aging conditions. The GE composites filled with 3 % nanoclay exhibited the enhancement of 10.73 %, 8.03 %, and 6.95 % in flexural strength, flexural stiffness and impact strength over neat GE composites, whereas these values were found to be only 1.35 %, 0.50 %, and 0.51 % in FMLs with 3 % nanoclay. In addition, the aged GE specimens with 3 wt.% nanoclay showed 13.45 %, 16.20 %, and 7.23 % loss in flexural strength, flexural stiffness and impact strength, respectively, while these values for aged FMLs contain 3 wt.% nanoclay were 8.63 % and 3.82 %, and 1.13 %, respectively.