Experimental Study on the Influence of Carbon Black Nano Particles on Ablative Properties of Carbon/Phenolic and Silica/Phenolic Composites

Abstract

This experimental study investigates the impact of carbon black nanoparticles (CBNP) on the ablative properties of two commonly used composite materials in aerospace applications: Carbon/Phenolic and Silica/Phenolic composites. Neat and Nanofillers added laminates of these two composite types were prepared using a hand layup process followed by curing in an autoclave at 170 ℃ temperature and 5 bar pressure. Physical properties such as density, fibre content, degree of cure, and glass transition temperatures of all four types were found. Mechanical tests were conducted to observe the change in Interlaminar shear strength (ILSS), Flexural strength (FS), and Flexural Modulus (FM) of the laminates due to the addition of fillers. Oxy-acetylene torch tests were carried out on all classes of laminates to study the influence of these new class of fillers on the ablative properties of composites such as Liner Ablation Rate (LAR) and Mass ablation rate (MAR). A heat flux of 835 W/cm² was applied for the ablation test in this experiment. The results indicated that the addition of CBNP (5 wt %) significantly enhances the ablation properties of Carbon/Phenolic composites (LAR & MAR reduce by 60 % & 62 % respectively), while it degrades for Silica/Phenolic composites (LAR & MAR increase by 17 % & 27 % respectively.