Mechanical and dynamic mechanical properties of epoxy syntactic foams reinforced by short carbon fiber

Epoxy syntactic foams were prepared with diglycidyl ether of bisphenol‐A (DGEBA) epoxy resin, 2.4.6‐tri(dimethylaminomethyl)phenol (DMP‐30), coupling treated microsphere and short carbon fiber. The density of the foam was maintained between 0.56 and 0.91 g/cm 3 for all compositions. Compressive, flexural, tensile and dynamic mechanical properties of the foams were investigated with respect to hollow glass microsphere (HGM) and carbon fiber (CF) content. A considerable improvement in the mechanical properties viz. compressive, flexural and tensile strengths was observed for the foams on incorporation of a small quantity of CF. The storage modulus were higher for the foam composites containing CF. The presence of HGM has significant influence on T g of the syntactic foams, spherical filler diminished the T g of the syntactic foams due to the plasticizing effect of the coupling treatment of HGM, that is helpful for enhancing damping properties of syntactic foams. POLYM. COMPOS., 37:1960–1970, 2016.