Effects of Chopped Alumina Fibers on Hardness and Impact Strength of Unsaturated Polyester

Abstract

Unsaturated polyester resins are widely used in industry by virtue of combinations of favourable characteristics including good mechanical and physical properties, ease of processing and low cost. However, these resins suffer from the disadvantage of brittleness.In this work, polymeric composites were prepared from unsaturated polyester resin reinforced with different weight fractions of chopped alumina fibers (6%, 12%, and 18%).The following properties were studied: hardness, impact strength, and material toughness.Experimental data showed that incorporation of alumina fiber reinforcements in the extremely brittle unsaturated polyester resin resulted in improvement material properties. Hardness, impact strength, and material toughness increased by 151%, 521% and 474% respectively at weight fraction of chopped alumina fibers (18%). The role of fiber reinforcing on the materials properties was discussed in terms of fibers nature and content.