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Advanced Engineering and Applied Sciences: An International Journal

Universal Research Publications. All rights reserved

ISSN 23203927

Original Article
Analysis and characterization of Tensile and Compressive Properties of the
Chopped Strand Mat E-Glass Fiber Reinforced Epoxy Composites
Sudhir S Mathapati1, M.Tech scholar, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Gogte Institute of Technology, Belgaum.
TusharT. Hawal2, Faculty, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Gogte Institute of Technology, Belgaum.
PrashantP. Kakamari3, Faculty, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Gogte Institute of Technology, Belgaum.
Nikhil R. 4, Faculty, Department of Industrial and Production Engineering, Gogte Institute of Technology, Belgaum.
Corresponding Author Email: sudhirmathapati@gmail.com
Received 02 July 2014; accepted 14 July 2014
Abstract
The greatest advantage of composite materials is strength and stiffness together with light weight. By choosing an
appropriate combination of matrix material and reinforcement, manufacturers can produce a property that exactly matches
the requirements for a particular structure for a particular purpose. The present works aims to prepare E-glass fiber
reinforced composite with variation in volume fraction of glass fiber content like 1%, 2% and 3% with Bisphenol A as
matrix material. Tensile and compression tests are conducted on the prepared composite. As a final point of view, the
experimental results are compared with the FEA results by using analysis software like ANSYS.
2014 Universal Research Publications. All rights reserved
Key words: Epoxy, E-glass fiber, Composite, FEA, ANSYS, Tensile test, Compression test.
compounds have been identified. Some cosmetics and soft
1. Introduction
Composite materials are an important class of materials plastic toys contain one or more phthalates a group of
which are now available to mankind in large quantity. In chemicals that interfere with testosterone and have been
recent years, many glass fiber-reinforced composite shown to lead to infertility and cancer.
materials are widely used in the aerospace and automotive 2.2 Selection of reinforcement material
industries. Composite materials are important for The Literature survey indicates that very limited work has
mechanical, chemical and civil engineers, material been done on the E-glass fiber reinforced epoxy composite.
scientists for using them on a large amount of engineering E-glass fibers were purchased from Binani Goa glass fiber
and other applications [1]. The technological development company, Mumbai. Glass fibers are readily produced from
has increased on advances in the materials field.A raw materials, which are now available in unlimited supply.
composite material is one, which consists of at least two Binani Chopped Strand Mat is made of randomly, yet
materials working together to produce new material with evenly distributed strands, chopped from continuous Eproperties that are dissimilar to the properties of individual glass fibers into 50 mm length, bonded with emulsion
material that they possess. It contains the most important binder contains better surface bonding efficiency.
characteristic that the materials are not soluble to each 2.3 Methods of preparing the composite material
other [2]. Most composites are made up by using more The raw materials used in this work are,
than one material [4]. Most of the commonly used
1) Matrix material
composite materials have a large phase, which is
2) E glass fiber (chopped strand mat)
continuous, called as the matrix, and one distributed, on3) Hardener
continuous phase called as the reinforcement, which is The fabrication of the composites is carried out by the hand
typically stronger and harder [5].Reinforcements are added lay-up technique. Composites of three different volume
primarily to improve the stiffness and strength of the matrix fraction variations such as1%, 2% and 3% of glass fiber are
and are usually available in the fiber form [7].
made. The matrix material was weighed to the required
quantity and catalyst, accelerator, hardener and glass fiber
2. Materials and processing methods
were added to the matrix material. Proper mixing was done
2.1 Selection of matrix material
Bisphenol A, more commonly known as BPA, is a using a mechanical stirrer. The glass fibers are randomly
chemical widely used to make polycarbonate plastics and oriented in the matrix. The mixture was then allowed to
epoxy resins.BPA is hardly the only chemical to be settle for some time to reduce the air bubbles. A releasing
identified as an "endocrine disrupter. More than 50 such agent was sprayed on the surface of the aluminum mould
Advanced Engineering and Applied Sciences: An International Journal 2014; 4(3): 29-33

29

and the mixture was then poured in it. Maximum care has
been taken to maintain uniformity and homogeneity of the
composite. The prepared composites slabs were cured at
room temperature for 24 hours before they were removed
from the mould. These slabs were then post cured in the air
for another 24 hours after removing out from the mould.
Specimens of suitable dimensions as per the ASTM
standards are cut using an electrically operated cutter for
mechanical testing. Tabs of the same parent material were
cut and were bound to the test specimen using the
commercially available adhesive. At least three test
specimens for each variant of the volume fraction (1%, 2%
and 3% of glass fiber) were prepared.
3. Experimental setup and conducting the test
3.1 Tensile and Compression Test
Tensile tests provide information about the tensile
properties of composites when engaged under the loading
conditions similar to those under which the tests are
made.The test specimens are prepared as per ASTM D
3039 [9] standard, as shown in figure1.

a)
b)
Fig 1 Specimens for tensile test, a) without tab. b) with tab
The universal testing machine set-up chosen has maximum

loading capacity of 100kN. The machine has two

crossheads out of which one is adjusted for the length of
the specimen and the other is driven to apply the load to the
test specimen. The test process involves of placing the test
specimen in the testing machine with a gauge length of
200mm, gripping the specimen in the jaws and applying the
load. During the application of load, the elongation of the
specimen is recorded against the applied load. Compression
test provides information about the compressive properties
of composites when employed under conditions
approximating those under which the tests are made.The
test specimens prepared for compression test were cut as
per ASTM D695 [11] specification using electrically
operated cutter. The specimen is placed under the moving
head and the compressive force acts on it
4. Results
From Table 1we can clearly observe that with increasing
glass fiber content, the deformation also goes on increasing
with respect to the load.
Figure 2 and figure 3 clearly shows that with increasing
volume fraction of glass fiber, the elongation of the
specimen also goes on increasing. It also shows the
comparison of elongation in different volume fractions of
glass fiber. It is seen that the maximum elongation occurs
at 3% volume fraction of glass fiber content which also
increases the load bearing capacity of the composite. The
same phenomenon was observed in the compression test
results which indicate that, when load increases the
deformation also increases and also whenever the volume
fraction of glass fiber content increases, the load and
deformation also increases.

Table 1. Results from tensile and compression tests

Tensile
Specimen
1%
E-Glass
Fiber
2%
E-Glass
Fiber
3%
E-Glass
Fiber

1A
1B
1C
MEAN
2A
2B
2C
MEAN
3A
3B
3C
MEAN

Load
(kN)
1.36
1.32
1.18
1.28
1.04
0.94
0.92
0.96
1.24
2.04
1.74
1.67

Fig 2 Mean deformation for tensile test

30

Deformation
(mm)
7.98
7.23
6.3
7.17
7.62
7.24
6.76
7.20
7.66
8.60
7.81
8.02

Load
(kN)
13.86
12.12
12.76
12.91
12.22
16.22
17.46
15.3
16.56
15.10
16.48
16.04

Compression
Deformation
(mm)
2.22
1.86
2.10
2.06
2.06
2.32
2.48
2.42
2.98
3.04
3.16
3.06

Fig 3 Mean deformation for compression test

Advanced Engineering and Applied Sciences: An International Journal 2014; 4(3): 29-33

5. Finite Element Analysis Using ANSYS

ANSYS is general purpose finite element analysis (FEA)
software package which is engineering simulation software
(computer- aided engineering, or CAE) that utilizes Finite
element Analysis. It is a numerical method in which a
complex system is divided into very small pieces called
elements. The software uses equations that generate the
behavior of these elements and solves them all.
5.1 Parameters chose as input to FEA
The engineering data and materials properties are required
to analyze the prepared composite specimens so that we
can create one model and use it for the analysis purpose. In
ANSYS software the parameters for analysis purpose
chosen were based on the matrix material and the
reinforcement. Static structure and advanced composite
tools were also selected for the purpose. The modeled
specimens were meshed using automatic fine mesh as
shown in figure 4 (a) and (b),

5.3 Compressive Test Results

The figure 6 a) shows the deformation for pure epoxy, max
is 6.365 mm. Figure 6b) shows the deformation for 1%of
glass fiber under 12.91e4 kN load. The deformation for 1%
of glass fiber, max is 1.9913mm.Figure6 c) shows the total
deformation for 2%of glass fiber where maximum value is
2.3545 mm.Figure6 d) shows the deformation for 3%of
glass fiber under the 16.04e4 kN load. The deformation for
3% of glass fiber, max is 2.4684 mm.

Fig 4 Finite element mesh model for: a) tensile test and b)

compressive test

Fig 6 Deformation under the compressive loads for various

volume fractions of glass fiber

5.2 Tensile Test Result.

Figure5 a) shows a deformation for pure epoxy with a
maximum of 9.587mm elongation under an applied load of
1.12e5 kN, Figure 5 b) shows the elongation for 1%
volume fraction of glass fiber under the 1.28e5 kN load.
The total elongation for 1%, max is 8.202 mm and min is
0.Figure5c) shows the total elongation for 2% of glass fiber
under the 0.96e5 kN load. The elongation for 2%, max is
6.1515 mm and min is 0. Figure 5d) shows the elongation
for 3% of glass fiber under the 1.67e5 kN load. The total
elongation for 3%, max is 10.701 mm and min is 0.

6. Validation of Experimental and ANSYS Results

For validating the results, from the experimental data, the
load values are taken and these values are used for the FEA
analysis. The results obtained from ANSYS match closely
with experimental results with a difference less than 25% in
the values.
6.1 Tensile
The curve in the figure 7 shows a very small amount of
deviation from the ANSYS obtained values for the
specimen modeled with the engineered data.

Fig 7 Comparison of FEA and experimental deformation

for tensile test

Fig 5 Elongation under the tensile loads for various volume

fractions of glass fiber

31

6.2 Compression
Table 3 shows the values of experimental deformation and
FEA deformation. It was observed that the experimental
deformation was slightly more than the deformation shown
by the ANSYS.

Advanced Engineering and Applied Sciences: An International Journal 2014; 4(3): 29-33

Table 2 Comparison of experimental and FEA Deflection from Tensile test

Volume fraction of
glass fiber
1%
2%
3%
Pure epoxy

Load (kN)

Deflection from
Experimental, mm

Deflection from FEA

(ANSYS), mm

1.28
0.96
1.67
1.20

7.17
7.20
8.02
7.88

8.02
6.151
10.70
9.58

Error between
Experimental and
FEA in mm
0.85
-1.05
2.68
1.7

Table 3 Comparison of FEA and experimental deformation for Compressive test

% of glass fiber

Load (kN)

Deflection from
Experimental, mm

1%
2%
3%
Pure epoxy

12.91
15.3
16.04
19.05

2.06
2.42
3.06
8.86

Fig 8 Comparison of FEA and experimental deformation

for compressive test
The nature of the curve shows that the deformation along
with the load bearing capacity of the composite increases
with the increasing volume fraction of glass fiber.
6.3 Strength of composite
Table 4 Strength
Strength, Mpa
Percentage

Pure epoxy

1%

2%

3%

Tensile

18.66

34.13

25.60

44.53

66.29

80.04

94.86

99.44

Compressive

Deflection from FEA

(ANSYS), mm
1.991
2.354
2.468
8.073

Error between
Experimental
and FEA in mm
0.07
0.06
0.6
0.78

Figure 9 shows the effect of glass fiber content on tensile

strength of various % (pure epoxy, 1%, 2% and 3%) of
glass fiber. The tensile strength of composite material
increases with increasing the percentage of glass fiber
content.
From the figure 9 a) the tensile strength for 3% is more
than the 1% and 2% andfigure9b) shows the effect of
Compressive fiber content on tensile strength of various %
(pure epoxy, 1%, 2% and 3%) of glass fiber. The
compressive strength of composite material increases with
increasing the percentage of glass fiber content.
6.4 Failure Analysis
The figure10 shows the fracture pattern of tensile and
compression samples having different volume fractions of
glass fiber. In figure 10a) the tensile fracture occurs near
the tabbing region. When the load increases the specimen
gets elongated and max stress occurs below the tab in the
specimen.
The figure10 b) shows the fracture pattern of compressive
samples tested under the 1%, 2% and 3% volume fraction
configurations. In all cases the crack was initiated at the
compression side of the specimen, with the central loading
and finally developing failure at the compressive side.

From the experimental values the Tensile and compressive

strengths were calculated for the pure epoxy and different
volume fractions (1%, 2% and 3%) of the composite
materials as shown in table 4. Using these values the effect
of glass fiber content on tensile strength of various volume
fractions was plotted as shown in Figure 9

Fig 10 Fractured samples with different configurations.

Fig 9 Effect of glass fiber content on tensile and

compressive strength

32

Suggestions: Randomly oriented glass fibers can be

directionally oriented and their effect on the mechanical
properties could be checked. Also the hybridization of the
composites can be done by adding nano reinforcement to
the existing system of epoxy-Glass fiber. The nano
reinforcement provides a large interfacial area leading to
the substantial enhancement in the mechanical properties.

Advanced Engineering and Applied Sciences: An International Journal 2014; 4(3): 29-33

7. Conclusions
The characterization of mechanical properties of the
composite reinforced with E-glass fiber, reinforced epoxy
composites is reported and the results are summarized as
follows. The E-glass fiber reinforced epoxy has high
ultimate tensile strength and high improvement in the
ultimate tensile strength at 3% volume fraction of the glass
fiber. Elongation increases with the increasing volume
fraction of Glass fiber. The compressive strength of the
composite shows the same behavior with the 3% volume
fraction glass fiber reinforcement yielding the highest
results. The tensile fracture occurred near the tabbing zone
for most of the specimens. The results obtained
experimentally were compared with the simulation in
ANSYS software. The experimental values and ANSYS
values match reasonably validating the experimental
results.
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Source of support: Nil; Conflict of interest: None declared

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Advanced Engineering and Applied Sciences: An International Journal 2014; 4(3): 29-33