Journal of Materials Science, Vol.38, No.3, 533-540, 2003
The effect of low energy impact on the tensile strength of coated and uncoated glass particulate composites
The residual tensile strength of glass filled particulate composites has been determined after low energy impact for various energy values. The material systems constructed for the needs of this research consisted of epoxy resin filled with glass beads. The glass beads were either uncoated or alternatively coated with a reactive silane based bonding agent. Specimens with various filler volume fractions were available. The effect of silane coating as well as the filler volume fraction was analytically discussed. Finally, a model developed in previous work for continuous fibre reinforced composite laminates was adopted to describe the residual tensile strength after impact. In most of the cases the predicted curves fit the experimental results very well. (C) 2003 Kluwer Academic Publishers.