Influence of service temperature and secondary fillers on the impact toughness of glass-epoxy composites

The influence of notch orientation and service temperature on the impact toughness of glass-epoxy composites filled with secondary and hybrid fillers has been studied. The experiment was carried out under different service temperatures by using pendulum type impact testing machine. Specimens were tested with two notch configurations such as notch along the laminate and notch across the laminate. The composite laminates were fabricated by using a hand lay-up technique and the experimentations were carried out according to the ASTM standards. The results showed that the specimen subjected to high temperature requires higher breaking impact toughness till 60 °C, further increase in temperature leads to decrease in required breaking impact toughness. The notch along the laminate is highly prone to catastrophic failure and notch across the laminate sustains the impact load to a considerable amount.