Degassing process influence on tensile strength of Neat E132 epoxy polymeric materials

Abstract

During the composite’s fabrication process, one of the most common defect occurs is void. Numerous literatures have suggested that the presence of void negatively affect its mechanical properties and effective degassing process is one the solutions for such issue. In this study, experiments were carried out using neat E132 epoxy to investigate the effects of different degassing process (hot water, ultrasonic bath, and vacuum) on its tensile strength. The duration of its process was carried out from 5 – 9 minutes for hot water and ultrasonic bath where vacuum process was extended until 10 minutes to observed limiting behavior. It is found that the vacuum degassing method is the most effective. Vacuum degassing process displayed the least formation of bubble and micro voids even for 10 minutes. It is also revealed that vacuum degassing process resulted the highest average tensile strength at 48.8MPa. Such findings would facilitate the well bonded effective nanocomposite fabrication process.