ABSTRACT
Polymer nanocomposites and fibre-reinforced polymer nanocomposites have been attractive in recent times due to their outstanding properties and may supplant some traditional composite materials in a wide variety of aerospace, automobile and marine structural applications and in the electronic industry. Polymers containing nano-sized fillers have an exceptionally high modulus in contrast to conventional micro-sized fillers of the same chemical composition. In addition, they exhibit a tremendous enhancement in a wide range of properties such as mechanical, thermal, electrical, chemical and barrier properties, and this recent technology can now be applied in commercial applications. Also, the addition of nano-sized fillers as a secondary reinforcement to the fibre-reinforced composites exhibits enhancement in engineering properties. As polymer matrix composites are rate sensitive to mechanical properties, it is important to understand their mechanical properties at low and high strain rates. Hence, the current study focuses on the effect of strain rates for polymer nanocomposites and fibre-reinforced polymer nanocomposites at low and high strain rates.
