Influence of Graphene and Tungsten Carbide Reinforcement on Tensile and Flexural Strength of Glass Fibre Epoxy Composites

Fibre-reinforced polymer composite materials show several superior properties over conventional engineering materials. Glass fibre has excellent mechanical properties. Hence, it is used as reinforcing agent to produce a very strong and relatively lightweight polymer composite. In order to enhance, the properties of glass fiber-reinforced polymer laminates by incorporating filler material to increase strength and mechanical properties. In this study, primary venture is to add up graphene and tungsten carbide filler into GFRP and study the behaviour of tensile, flexural strength. The composite was fabricated by hand lay-up process with sample thickness of 2.8 mm. It has been evaluated by the addition of 2, 4 and 6% of weight percentage graphene and tungsten carbide nanopowder filler material. The properties of the laminates will be tested by carrying out tensile and flexural strength per ASTM standard D 3039 and D 790, respectively. The effect of the addition of 2 wt% graphene will show the tremendous improvement in flexural strength, whereas addition 4 wt% of tungsten carbide shows excellent improvement in tensile strength compared with parent GFRP having an absence of filler material. It was observed that the GFRP reinforced with graphene and tungsten carbide improves the mechanical properties of GFRP.