Fabrication, Morphology and Properties of Soybean Oil‐Based Composites Reinforced with Continuous Glass Fibers

Novel thermosetting composites were successfully prepared using glass fiber as a reinforcement for soybean and LoSatSoy oil‐based resins prepared by cationic copolymerization with styrene and divinylbenzene. The effect of the matrix composition and glass fiber loading on the morphology, thermal stability and mechanical properties of the resulting composites were extensively investigated. Increasing the glass fiber loading from 0 to 50 wt.‐% in the composites resulted in a significant increase in Young's modulus from 150 to 2 730 MPa and ultimate tensile strength from 7.9 to 76 MPa. The correlation between the experimental mechanical properties of glass fiber reinforced composites with values calculated by various empirical models was also analyzed. Increasing the crosslinking of the matrix resulted in composites with improved thermal and mechanical properties. These soybean oil‐based composites have good structure damping properties and potential applications where the reduction of both unwanted noise and vibration is important. magnified image