Tensile behavior of environmental pollutant crumb rubber filled epoxy composites

Abstract

Abstract Tensile test is conducted on environmentally pollutant crumb rubber/epoxy composite. Crumb rubber particles with different volume fractions (10, 20 and 30%) are reinforced with epoxy matrix. Stress-strain curves reveal brittle fail for all the samples. Crumb rubber filled epoxy composites reveal higher modulus (13%–28%) and strength (28%–44%) than neat epoxy sample. Epoxy with 30 volume % of crumb rubber depicts higher modulus and strength compared with all other compositions, exemplifying use of crumb rubber for utilarian applications. Crumb rubber/epoxy composites register higher specific modulus and strength for all compositions in comparison with neat epoxy. Scanning electron micrographs of test samples are used to analyze property - composition correlations. Finally, property map is plotted to compare the results of present study with existing ones to highlight the efficacy of the proposed composites.