Nanomechanical Properties of a Bicomponent Epoxy Resin via Blending with Polyaryletherketone

Abstract

In order to investigate the nanomechanical behaviors and nanotribological properties of bicomponent epoxy resin (BE) blends, which were filled with thermoplastic polyaryletherketone (PAEK) powders, nanoindentation and nanoscratch tests were performed. The brittle fractured morphologies of bicomponent epoxy resin blends were studied. The microhardness and elastic modules of the materials were measured using the nanoindentation technology. The hardness, elastic modulus, and other mechanical properties of materials on a nanoscale were determined. Nanoindentation and scratch experiments showed that the indentation response is dominated by plastic deformation. The microhardness is the lowest as the content of PAEK powders is increased to 30 parts per hundred parts of resin (phr), while that of the neat bicomponent epoxy resin specimen is the highest. Furthermore, the pristine bicomponent epoxy resin (BE) exhibited better load-carrying and indentation recovery capacity than the other three samples. The nanoscratch results indicate that the frictional coefficient of the BE/PAEK-30 blend is the lowest, and while that of the pristine bicomponent epoxy resin is the highest, with better scratch/wear resistance.