Geopolymer filled glass reinforced epoxy composite using filament winding

Glass fiber reinforced epoxy composite tubes have a great strength, lighter in weight, and low risk of bursting which make them commonly preferred in the fields of aviation, structural engineering, and in oil and gas industries. Conventional glass reinforced epoxy pipes have its own disadvantages such as low strength and low heat performance which can be replaced by the filled glass reinforced epoxy. Mechanical and physical properties of epoxy can be harshly reduced when exposed to corrosive and heavy duty environment. Conventional glass reinforced epoxy also cannot stand with high temperature and heat resistance. The piping system of existing glass reinforced epoxy is issued to high mechanical load and chemical experience, performance, and stability of glass reinforced epoxy pipes may sensitive to damage suffered by poor handling and installation. This research was conducted to produce a series of glass reinforced epoxy pipe and glass reinforced epoxy pipe filled with fly ash-based geopolymer and white clay-based geopolymer by using 10 wt% to 40 wt% geopolymer filler using filament winding process. The parameters for the geopolymer filler production includes the sodium hydroxide concentration, types of geopolymer filler used, and the percentage of geopolymer filler used in the epoxy resin. The performance of glass reinforced epoxy pipe filled with geopolymer filler were analysed in term of compressive strength, water absoption, density and hydrostatic pressure strength. From this study, the maximum compressive strength (94.64 MPa and 88.14 MPa) of glass reinforced epoxy filled with geopolymer filler pipe was achieved at 12M sodium hydroxide concentration for both fly ash-based geopolymer and white clay-based geopolymer filler. The compressive strength result of glass reinforced epoxy pipes filled with geopolymer filler for fly ash and white clay showed an increment up to 30 wt% of geopolymer filler and start to decrease at 40 wt% of geopolymer filler in both vertical and horizontal position. The maximum strength in vertical position of glass reinforced epoxy pipe without any geopolymer filler shows only 53.36 MPa in compressive strength while glass reinforced epoxy pipe filled with fly ash-based geopolymer and white clay-based geopolymer filler shows 94.64 MPa and 88.14 MPa respectively. Furthermore, the compressive strength test in horizontal position for both glass reinforced epoxy filled with geopolymer filler (fly ash and white clay) pipe samples shows the highest compressive strength which is 6.73 MPa and 5.84 MPa respectively, compared to glass reinforced epoxy pipe without any geopolymer filler material only showed 5.07 MPa. Besides that, for the hydrostatic pressure test, the samples with hoop pattern filament winding process shows better results compared to helical pattern of filament winding process. Glass reinforced epoxy pipe filled with fly ash-based geopolymer filler showed highest bursting reading which is 261 bar and glass reinforced epoxy filled with white clay-based geopolymer filler is 246 bar compared to glass reinforced epoxy pipe without geopolymer filler is only at 225 bar. Apart of making a new piping product, this is show that geopolymer can be used as a filler material in glass reinforced epoxy composite pipe.