Enhanced thermo-mechanical properties of acrylic resin reinforced with silanized alumina whiskers

Summary

Acrylic resins used in dental and structural applications are prone to cracking, so this work reinforces them with silanized alumina whiskers while also building in a self-healing capability. The self-healing system embeds two components in the resin: microcapsules loaded with the healing monomer dicyclopentadiene (DCPD), and modified Grubbs’ catalyst carried inside electrospun polystyrene (PS) nanofibers — so that when a crack tears the capsules and fibres, the released monomer meets the catalyst and polymerises to seal the crack. The composites contained 3% w/w alumina whiskers plus 1% w/w each of PS fibres and urea-formaldehyde microcapsules. Silanizing the whiskers raised the glass-transition temperature and impact-energy absorption versus unmodified whiskers, and nanoindentation showed the reduced modulus rose about 65% and hardness about 90%. After low-energy impact cracking, the repeated-impact test confirmed a self-healing efficiency of 74% at 96 h.

Authors & Affiliations

• Omar Yerro

  Faculty of Technology and Metallurgy, University of Belgrade, Serbia
• Vesna Radojević

  Faculty of Technology and Metallurgy, University of Belgrade, Serbia
• Ivana Radović

  Faculty of Technology and Metallurgy, University of Belgrade, Serbia
• Aleksandar Kojović

  Faculty of Technology and Metallurgy, University of Belgrade, Serbia
• Petar S. Uskoković

  Faculty of Technology and Metallurgy, University of Belgrade, Serbia
• Dušica B. Stojanović

  Faculty of Technology and Metallurgy, University of Belgrade, Serbia
• Radoslav Aleksić

  Faculty of Technology and Metallurgy, University of Belgrade, Serbia

Topics

Materials

Linari Electrospinning Systems