Study of the effect of nano alumina on electrical and mechanical properties of cast epoxy composite

More recently, epoxy/nano alumina composites have become a strenuous topic of research for their electrical, physical and thermal properties which give them the capability to be used as electrical insulators. Alumina, which is a hard spherical material, could be an appropriate option for reinforcing epoxy resin; since it has properties like high stiffness, significant thermal conductivity and dielectric characteristic. The objective of the current paper is to investigate the influence of nano alumina particles on electrical and mechanical properties of the cast epoxy composite. To accomplish this purpose, different weight percent of nano alumina were added to the epoxy/silica flour system to measure loss factor and specific volume resistivity at different temperatures. Also, flexural strength and modulus as well as dynamic mechanical properties of the samples were studied. It was observed that electrical properties of the epoxy composites have related to temperature and they were affected by interfacial interaction between nano alumina and epoxy chains at room temperature. Furthermore, it was realized that flexural strength was increased by nano alumina contents