Indian Journal of Science and Technology

Abstract

Objectives: The composite materials that are used for flat panel Radome in aircrafts are going through continuous up-gradation in an attempt to enhance their performance with extended capabilities against severe environments. The addition of glass microspheres as fillers in cross plied laminates has been done here, with an intention of measuring the extent of its influence in the selected critical mechanical/structural and di electrical properties. Methods: The thin laminates with three and four plies oriented in 0/90-degree order respectively were fabricated by hand lay technique. Using ASTM standards, the samples were cut by water jet cutting and properties like tensile strength, flexural strength, di electrical strength; loss tangent (Dissipation factor) and dielectric constant were latter evaluated. The inter relation between stacking sequences in accordance with unbalanced and balanced nature of three and four plied laminates respectively and the significance of glass fillers in influencing the above properties are the objectives that were projected into the findings. Findings: Apparently, a better structural response to the loading condition was observed in thicker and symmetrically balanced four plied laminates with 10% filler, wherein di electric constant and loss tangent were found to be best for thinner three plied laminates with 10% and 30% fillers respectively. Di electric strength was found to be superior for thinner three plied laminates but with 20% filler addition. The conclusive summary captures the significant role played by the glass microspheres as fillers in influencing the different properties under different testing conditions. Improvements: Besides the glass microspheres the other filler materials with different tradeoffs between di electrical and mechanical/structural properties could be tried to capture the property changes in the offing. Further novelty could be brought in to this spectrum by introducing variations with regard to the ply numbers and their orientations while stacking the plies to build laminates. 

Keywords: Cross Plied Laminates, Glass Spheres, Modified Epoxy, Properties of Epoxy/Cyanate, Stacking Functionalization