Structural Analysis of Sol-Gel Derived TiO2 Nanoparticles: A Critical Impact of TiO2 Nanoparticles on Thermo-Mechanical Mechanism of Glass Fiber Polymer Composites

The incorporation of inorganic nanoparticles with thermosetting epoxy polymer is an emerging field of research over the past few years. It is well analyzed that epoxy matrix is brittle in nature that shows rapid crack initiation and rapid propagation without increasing applied stress value. Therefore, researchers are showing their interest in nanoparticles embedded epoxy composites to improve their fracture resistance (brittleness and toughness). In this investigation, the dispersion of TiO2 nanoparticles at different weight fractions (0-2 %) with glass fiber reinforced epoxy composites is performed to enhance structural and thermo-mechanical properties. The TiO2 nanoparticles are prepared by sol-gel method and structural analysis of TiO2 nanoparticles shows greater interfacial bond with epoxy matrix and glass fibers due to fine dispersion of nanoparticles. From obtained results, a significant enhancement in their tensile strength (38.56 %), flexural strength (30.52 %), inter-laminar shear stress (25.22 %), impact strength (327.10 %), micro-hardness (48.53 %) and fracture energy (40.19 %) with a minimal detrimental effect on toughness was revealed for GFRP-T1.0 compare to GFRP-T0.0 composite laminates. The stiffness and rigidity also improved up to 52.72 % and 34.13 % respectively for GFRP-T1.5 compare to GFRP-T0.0 composite laminates. The effects of nanoparticles contents and clustering size on thermal stability and glass transition temperature of developed composites are observed by thermo-gravimetric analysis. The surface morphology of TiO2 nanoparticles is characterized by transmission electron microscope (TEM) while the dispersion of nanoparticles and failure of developed composites were analyzed by scanning electron microscopy (SEM).