Compressive behavior of epoxy resin filled with silica nanoparticles at high strain rate

The aim of this paper is to study the compressive behavior of a typical aeronautical epoxy composite matrix filled with silica nanoparticles at high strain rates. The weight percentage of the silica nanoparticles was 1% of the epoxy resin and the average size of the nanoparticles was approx. 800 nm, as measured by SEM image analysis. Reference quasi-static experiments (at strain rates 0.0008, 0.008, and 0.08 s) and high strain rate experiments (up to 1050 s) were carried out using both neat and silica nanoparticle filled epoxy resins. Results showed that the addition of silica nanoparticles improved the compressive yield strength and reduced the maximum strain of the epoxy resin at quasi-static and high strain rates. In addition, results revealed that strain rate sensitivity at higher strain rates was also negatively affected.. The effect of strain rate on the compressive yield strength of silica nanoparticles filled epoxy reasonably followed a power law, which is characterised by a strain rate exponent value of approx. 0.0227.