Physicomechanical Properties and Structure of Multicomponent Titanium-Matrix-Base Alloy Dispersion Epoxy Composites

The effect of a dispersed powder filler obtained by thermal synthesis from the reaction mixture of 65 wt.% titanium hydride, 30 wt.% ferrosilicon manganese, and 5 wt.% boron carbide, on the basic physicomechanical properties of an ED-20 epoxy diane oligomer-base composite was studied. The filler content in the composite varied in the range of 5-80 wt.%. Its optimum content providing an essential improvement of the mechanical composite properties [strength and impact toughness (by 1.7-2.3 times compared to the parent matrix)] was established to be 10 wt.%. A further increase in the filler content to 20–60 wt.% results in a slight decrease of fracture stresses whose level, however, still exceeds the strength level of the parent matrix phase, while at 80 wt.%, the fracture stresses decrease almost to the strength level of filler-free epoxy resin. The physical substantiation for the extremum on the relation between the basic mechanical composite properties and filler content built on the hypothesis of the independent effect of mechanical and structural factors on the composite properties is advanced. In contrast to the cohesive composite properties, the addition of 5–20 wt.% of dispersed filler to the epoxy matrix does not lead to fundamental changes in the adhesion strength level (22.0-26.4 MPa), while with an increase to 40–60 wt.% results in a noticeable decrease in the adhesion strength, and at 80 wt.%, the adhesion strength drops catastrophically to 10.7 MPa. The residual stresses in the filler-containing coating are reduced by 2.5-5 times compared to the filler-free parent epoxy matrix.