Utilization of waste silk fabric as reinforcement for acrylonitrile butadiene styrene toughened epoxy matrix

The blend matrix epoxy-acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) is prepared with varying weight percentage (2, 4, 6, 8, and 10) of ABS content in epoxy and the tensile, flexural, and impact properties of this blend matrix is determined. The blend matrix, which contains 4% ABS content in epoxy shows maximum strength and this is used as the matrix to prepare composites. Composites are prepared with varying weight fraction of silk fabric as the reinforcement and pure epoxy and ABS-epoxy as matrix. The developed composites are tested for their mechanical properties and it is found that the strength of the composites increases after toughening epoxy resin with ABS polymer.