Investigation of tensile properties, hardness, and morphology of h-BN and MoS2 filler modified carbon fabric/epoxy composites

The present study aims to improve the tensile and hardness properties of carbon fabric-reinforced epoxy composite (CFEC) by using hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) and molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) fillers. Magnetic stirring and ultrasonication were used to disperse fillers in epoxy resin. CFEC, h-BN filled CFEC and MoS2 filled CFEC fabricated as per hand layup and vacuum bag technique. The tensile strength of CFEC was remarkably improved up to 6 wt.% h-BN and MoS2 addition separately in the resin matrix. The maximum tensile strength of 486 MPa and Young's modulus of 44 GPa were noticed in 6 wt.% h-BN incorporated CFEC displaying 59% and 47% improvements, respectively. The maximum toughness is shown by 6 wt.% MoS2 incorporated CFEC indicating 102% improvement. The uniformly dispersed high-performance filler in the epoxy effectively transferred stress, improving tensile properties. However, filler agglomerates, stress-raising spots, and poor filler-matrix interaction beyond 6 wt.% filler reduced the tensile property improvement. The introduction of h-BN and MoS2 in the composite increased hardness, with 6 wt.% h-BN added CFEC recording the highest hardness denoting 23% greater than the neat CFEC.