%0 Journal Article
%T The Effect of Nanoparticles Percentage on Mechanical Behavior of Silica-Epoxy Nanocomposites
%A Md Saiful Islam
%A Reza Masoodi
%A Hossein Rostami
%J Journal of Nanoscience
%D 2013
%R 10.1155/2013/275037
%X Silica-epoxy nanocomposites are very common among nanocomposites, which makes them very important. Several researchers have studied the effect of nanoparticle¡¯s size, shape, and loading on mechanical behavior of silica-epoxy nanocomposites. This paper reviews the most important research done on the effect of nanoparticle loading on mechanical properties of silica-epoxy nanocomposites. While the main focus is the tensile behavior of nanocomposite, the compressive behavior and flexural behavior were also reviewed. Finally, some of the published experimental data were combined in the graphs, using dimensionless parameters. Later, the best fitted curves were used to derive some empirical formulas for mechanical properties of silica-epoxy nanocomposites as functions of weight or volume fraction of nanoparticles. 1. Introduction Nanotechnology, technologies at nanoscale, is a new science that involves enhancing and engineering the material properties and technologies at the nanoscale. In comparison with the microtechnology, nanotechnology leads to extremely different phenomena and performances. The nanocomposite products contain reinforcing or fillers in nanoscale (less than 100£¿nm). Most of the mechanical properties can be improved using nanoscale fillers [1]. Researchers have studied the current and future prospective products within the nanoscience [2]. They predicted that nanomaterial would open new dimensions in the industrial applications. In order to produce polymer nanocomposites with desirable properties, there are various kinds of nanoparticles that can be added to a polymer matrix [2]. The nanostructured materials may be classified according to their dimensionality, morphology, composition, and uniformity/agglomeration states [3]. Based on dimensionality, nanostructured materials are classified into 1D (i.e., thin films or surface coatings), 2D (i.e., fixed long nanostructures, thick membranes with nanopores, and free long aspect ratio nanowires), and 3D (i.e., fixed small nanostructures, membranes with nanopores, and free small aspect ratio nanoparticles) [3]. Additional examples of 2D fillers include smectic clays or phyllosilicates [4], layered silicic acids [5], kanemite (Na2HSi2O5), makatite [Na2Si4O8(OH)2¡¤4(H2O)], octosilicate (Na2Si8O17¡¤ H2O), kenyaite (Na2Si2O41¡¤ H2O) [6], and layered double hydroxides (LDH) [7]. The polymers that are used for making polymer nanocomposites are thermoplastics, thermosets, and elastomers. Nanofillers may be classified into three categories based on their sizes, morphologies, and shapes [8]. In the first
%U http://www.hindawi.com/journals/jns/2013/275037/