Study the effect of different fillers on the performance of ethylene propylene diene monomer rubber‐based thermal shielding materials

Abstract

AbstractPolymeric composites are becoming increasingly popular materials due to their wide range of uses in heat shielding materials for solid rocket motors and aerospace applications. Novel polymeric composites are prepared and evaluated containing chopped carbon fibers, glass fibers (GF), and basalt fibers (BF), besides, recently used fillers such as Kevlar fibers (KF), and fumed silica (FS) to study their effects on the mechanical, thermal, and ablative properties of the ethylene propylene diene monomer (EPDM) hybrid composite. Mechanical, chemical, thermal, and ablative tests are performed to show the performance of the prepared polymeric composites. Experimental investigations have shown that the addition of GF to the EPDM matrix has a great influence on raising the tensile strength to 6.570 MPa. By incorporating KFs into EPDM, a solid char layer is formed during ablation, resulting in the best ablative performance with a decrease in the ablation rate of 73%, while the addition of FS, and BF to EPDM gives the best thermal stability results with total weight loss of 80.34%, and 81.77%, respectively.