AFM substantiation of the fracture behavior and mechanical properties of sol鈥揼el derived silica packed epoxy networks

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• 作者：Adeel Afzal (12) adeel.afzal@uniba.it
  Humaira M. Siddiqi (1)
  Adnan Mujahid (3)
  Shaukat Saeed (4)
• 关键词：AFM &#8211 ; Fracture &#8211 ; Microstructure &#8211 ; Nanocomposites &#8211 ; Sol&#8211 ; gel &#8211 ; Surfaces
• 刊名：Journal of Sol-Gel Science and Technology
• 出版时间：January 2012
• 出版年：2012
• 期刊代码：25_09280707
• 类别：mat
• 卷：61
• 期：1
• 页码：44-48
• 数据来源：sp

摘要

Silica packed epoxy networks are prepared in two steps via in situ, solvent free sol–gel processing of tetraethoxysilane in liquid epoxy monomer and curing the mixture with a flexible diamine afterwards. The influence of filler content and processing conditions on the mechanical properties and the fracture behavior is studied by means of the static mechanical analysis and AFM characterization of the pristine and the fractured polymer surfaces, and a mechanism to enhance polymer strength and toughness is proposed. The in–situ evolution and packing of silica nanostructures into epoxy networks influences the overall morphology and performance of polymers under high stress. It is found that smaller silica domains distributed at the molecular level cause efficient crack distribution by absorbing energy and thus improve the strength and toughness of silica packed epoxy polymers.