A tensile test was carried out for SiC/Al composite specimens which have different width. A Monte Carlo simulation using finite element method was performed with changing the width of SiC/Al composite model. The size effect of composite strength and its reliability was examined and discussed. The results showed that composite strength does not appear to have large change but its reliability is improved with increasing the composite specimen width. Effect of specimen width on composite strength and its reliability is dependent on the both factors, that is, (a) the accumulating of fracture process and (b) fibre strength and its scatter of the weaker fibres in the composite. The accumulation of the fracture process is related to the fibre stress distribution in the composite.
Chemically covalent bonded graphene oxide (MGO)/Poly(3-hydroxybutyrate) (PHB) nanocomposites were fabricated successfully through solution blending. Morphological observations indicated that MGO was dispersed well in the nanocomposites during solution intercalation. The mechanical and thermal property characterizations indicated that incorporation of 2.0 wt.% MGO resulted in the increasing of up to 101% and 46% in tensile strength and tensile modulus of nanocomposites, respectively, compared to neat PHB; while the maximum thermal decomposition temperature improved about 15.5 °C higher than that of PHB. Differential scanning calorimetric (DSC) analysis showed that the crystallization process of PHB accelerated, resulting in an increasing in crystallinity with the incorporation of MGO due to its’ “ nucleating effect”. Electrical conductivity analysis indicated that the electrical conductivity of MGO/PHB nanocomposites has increased by 14 orders in comparison to that of pure PHB, especially for r-MGO filled PHB nanocomposites (4 wt.% r-MGO loading). It was concluded that the formation of graphene-graphene network structure in the nanocomposites, the increases in homogeneous dispersion of graphene and interfacial interactions contributed to the enhancements of properties.
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