Effect of Clay Nanoparticles on Increasing the Lifetime of Glass/Epoxy Composites under Thermal and Humidity Conditions (Hydrothermal)

In this research, the effect of adding clay Nanoparticles on increasing the lifetime of glass/epoxy composites under hydrothermal conditions has been investigated. For this purpose, samples containing 3 Vol.% of clay Nanoparticles and samples without clay Nanoparticles in resin epoxy has been manufactured for the fabrication of specimens of the tensile test using hand lay-up and vacuum bag. The specimens were placed under the hydrothermal condition of 90% humidity and 75 °C temperature for 500 hours in the incubator and were tested for tensile properties. The results show that addition of clay Nanoparticles decreases the strength of the composite by 21.39% in the newly produced samples while in a long time, these particles slow down the process of composite degradation, so that in the same environmental conditions, the strength of specimens containing clay Nanoparticles is 9% higher than the specimens without clay Nanoparticles.