Reinforcing Effect of Nanoclay on Buckling Behavior of Glass Fiber/Epoxy-Clay Cylindrical Grid Structures _ Experimental study

The present study represents the influence of nanoclay on buckling behavior of glass fiber reinforced polymer (GFRP) grid-stiffened nanocomposite shells with diamond lattice patterned reinforcement formed by helical ribs. Axial compression tests have been carried out using an instron testing machine. The nanocomposite grid shells were manufactured from continuous glass fiber using a speciallydesigned filament winding machine. The epoxy/clay nanocomposites with different clay content (0%, 1.5%, 3% and 5% of clay) were used as the matrix of the grid stiffened structures. Based on the experimental results, the critical buckling load of the cylindrical grid samples increase continuously with increasing the clay content and the maximum value of improvement in critical buckling load is about 10% for the samples with 5 wt. % of nanoclay.

Keywords:

Axial Compression Test , Critical Buckling Load , Epoxy , Clay , Nanocomposite