The effect of radiation curing on mechanical joints prepared from carbon nanotubes added carbon/epoxy laminates

Abstract The fiber reinforced polymer composite materials used in industries are prepared by different curing techniques. Radiation curing is one such technique with numerous advantages. This study is related to the evaluation of load bearing capacity of the radiation cured carbon/epoxy composite pin joints with and without the addition of multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWCNT). The different compositions that is, 0.1 wt% to 0.5 wt% of MWCNT was added in the epoxy resin. The 0.3 wt% of MWCNT showed maximum strength values because of improved interfacial bond strength and the efficient stress transfer between the stiff MWCNT and soft polymer matrix through refined polymer/MWCNT interface. The single pin joint configurations were prepared using different geometric combinations of width to diameter and edge to diameter ratios, ranged from 2 to 5. The progressive failure analysis was done using Hashin damage criteria, to compare the predicted failure loads with the experimentally obtained results.