Analysis of the Young’s modulus and impact strength of A-glass/epoxy/nano-silica ternary nano-composites using surface response methodology

The goal of this study was to investigate the effect of the simultaneous presence of A-glass fibers and nano-silica on an epoxy matrix using the response surface methodology (RSM). The Box–Behnken method was used to design experiments to determine the main and interaction effect between variables including glass fibers (GF), glass fibers length (GFL) and nano-silica (NS) in three levels (5, 10 and 15 wt.% for GF; 3, 6 and 9 mm for GFL; and 0, 0.75 and 1.5 wt.% for NS). The RSM provides a model for each response with high confident. Moreover, RSM models were used to predict the optimal case for the maximum Young’s modulus and impact strength. The optimal case was estimated to be 15 wt.% for GF at ۵٫۹۶۹۷ mm length and 0.8182 wt.% for NS. Experimental tests showed an agreement with the predicted values. Further, scanning electron microscopy was used to evaluate the morphology of the samples. It was found that the length of the glass fiber and nanoparticles had the most effect on the Young’s modulus and impact strength, respectively.