The Effect of Nonwoven Electrospun PAN Nanofiber Mat on Mechanical and Thermal Properties of Epoxy Composites

Abstract

In this study mechanical and thermal properties of epoxy resin reinforced with different numbers of nanofiber layers which produced with electrospinning method was investigated. Solution of 10 wt% of polyacrylonitrile (PAN) in N,N-dimethylformamide (DMF) was used for electrospinning. The diameters of the obtained nanofibers were in the range of 380-420 nm. The average thickness of the produced nanofiber layer was about 200 µm. The special molds were prepared to produce the laminated composite plates. The tensile tests show that the using of nanofiber PAN layers increase the tensile force 34.54% and decrease the elongation 8.87% in comparison with neat epoxy. The fracture surfaces of the specimens were inspected by using optical and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The thermal properties of the nanofiber layered composites were determined by thermo gravimetric analysis (TGA) and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) analysis. It was observed that the glass transition temperature increased parallel to this as the number of PAN layers increased and rose up to 86ᵒC, while the thermal stability did not show much effect of PAN layers.

Keywords

• Electrospinning,Nanofiber; PAN; Composite; TGA; DSC

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