Glass reinforced epoxy are widely known in oil and gas industry as glass reinforced epoxy pipe. However, glass reinforced epoxy has limitation such as demanding careful handling due fabrication, installation and transportation because of brittle nature itself and low compressive strength. The aim of this research is to characterize and study the effect of different geopolymer filler in the glass reinforced epoxy pipe composites. Filament winding method will be used in producing glass reinforced epoxy composite. Samples will be prepared with different weight percentage of geopolymer filler loading and different types of geopolymer filler which is fly ash-based geopolymer and kaolin-based geopolymer with 10wt% - 40wt% of geopolymer filler loading. Microstructure was obtained by using Scanning Electron Microscopy showed spherical shaped of fly ash raw material and plate-like structure for kaolin raw material. After undergoes the mechanical testing involved compressive test, pipe sample of glass reinforced epoxy filled with 20 wt% of fly ash-based geopolymer filler showed the best performances above them all. The compressive strength value was 43.05 MPa. Glass reinforced epoxy composite pipe filled with different geopolymer are not widely used in this research area. Therefore, by using geopolymer as a filler can improve the properties of glass reinforced epoxy composite pipe. Hence, a waste material like geopolymer can reduce the cost of material and improve the environment.
Funding(s)
School of Materials Engineering, Purdue University
