EXPERIMENTAL INVESTIGATION ON TENSILE AND DAMPING PROPERTIES OF FLYASH REINFORCED GLASS FIBER EPOXY COMPOSITES

Abstract: Glass Fiber Reinforced Epoxy (GFRE) composites are one of the most widely used in structural engineering components like Turbine blades, Airplane wings, and helicopter blades as well as in many others in aerospace, mechanical and civil industries. Most of these structural components are subjected to dynamic loadings where the damage results from resonant vibrations. In this project fly ash powder is mixed with epoxy resin and Flyash reinforced glass fiber epoxy composites are fabricated using hand lay-up process by varying the different weight percentages (0%, 5%, 10%, 15%, and 20%) of fly ash. The tensile strength of these specimens are found experimentally by Universal Testing Machine(UTM).The free vibration behavior of fly ash reinforced glass fiber epoxy composites is studied in fix-free boundary conditions using impact hammer technique. The objective of this project is to study the influence of flyash on glass fiber epoxy composites to know the behavior of tensile and damping properties. Experimental results shows that the tensile and damping properties are improved very much for 5% Flyash reinforced GFRE composites.

Keywords: Glass fiber, Epoxy resin, Flyash, Hand lay-up method, FFT analyzer.