Characterization of mechanical properties of epoxy/nanohybrid composites by nanoindentation

The carbon nanofibers and molybdenum disulfide (CNF-MoS2) nanohybrid material was fabricated and incorporated into epoxy resin to form the nanocomposite coating. Firstly, microstructure observation shows that each CNF was uniformly wrapped up with MoS2 nanosheets, and the nanohybrids were well dispersed in the coating. Then, nanoindentation experiments were carried out to explore the effect of the CNF-MoS2 nanohybrids on the mechanical properties of the epoxy resin coating. The results demonstrate that elastic modulus, hardness and creep deformation resistance of the CNF-MoS2 epoxy resin coating are greatly increased in comparison with both pure epoxy resin and MoS2 epoxy resin coatings. Finally, the underlying mechanism of high-performance tribological behavior of the nanocomposites is analyzed accordingly. It can be concluded that the wrapped structure with MoS2 sheets growing on the surface of CNF increases the contact area and reduces the friction coefficient of the composite coating, while the wear resistance of the nanocomposite coating is also greatly improved due to the superior high hardness of CNF.