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Effect of ethanol on the mold filling-time and mechanical properties of woven glass fiber reinforced epoxy filled with TiO2 nanoparticles

Vacuum resin infusion (VRI) is a promising technique for manufacturing complicated structural laminates. This high viscosity of nanofilled resin increases the filling time and leads to an incomplete mold filling. The mold filling time can be reduced either by making the fiber dimensions smaller than the mold (gaps around the fibers) or by adding ethanol to nanofilled epoxy. However, ethanol addition influences the mechanical properties of composite laminates. In this study, different amounts of ethanol (0.5 wt. % and 1 wt. %) were used as a diluent to both neat epoxy and epoxy filled with (0.25 wt. %) of titanium dioxide (TiO2) nanoparticles. From results, it was found that ethanol addition saves the time for neat and nanofilled epoxy by 47.1% and 24.1%, respectively. It was found that adding 0.5 wt. % of ethanol to 0.25wt. % of TiO2 nanoparticles (GT0.25E0.5) enhances the tensile and flexural strength by 30.8% and 55.9%, respectively compared with neat specimens. Furthermore, the tensile and flexural moduli increased by 62% and 72.3%, respectively. Furthermore, the mold filling time was investigated experimentally and validated numerically using ANSYS FLUENT software. The mold filling time prediction using ANSYS FLUENT can be used to avoid resin gelation before the incomplete mold filling and thus can be considered a cost-effective methodology. The results showed that the gaps around the fibers reduce the time by 178% without affecting the mechanical properties.