CARBON NANOTUBE REINFORCED-EPOXY BASED ADHESIVES: CORRELATIONS BETWEEN FRACTURE MORPHOLOGY AND CHEMICAL FUNCTIONAL CHANGES

This paper addresses the experimental correlations between failure mode morphologies and the chemical changes inside an epoxy-based adhesive nanomodified by carbon nanotubes. This “special” nanocomposite is under a combined loading. i.e., shear and peel stresses, commonly encountered into single lap joints under tension. An increase in intensity on FTIR spectra on chemical functional at wavenumbers ranges 750-835 cm-1, 1170-1250 cm-1 and 1450-1610 cm-1 are related to the ductile-like fracture morphology due to more molecular mobility. At meanwhile, the increase in intensity at 2950-3350 cm-1 wavenumber range is linked to brittle-like morphology fracture. The cohesive failure is associated to the ductile-like failure morphology, while the adhesive failure is related to brittle-like morphology fracture.