Investigation on mechanical properties of basalt/epoxy fiber reinforced polymer composite with the influence of turtle shell powder

The research article deals with the efficacy of turtle shell powder (TSP) as an attempt at a novel perspective vision, used as a filler material in the fabrication of basalt-epoxy composites preparation for us as a first opportunity. The fiber reinforced polymer composite made of basalt-epoxy matrix was fabricated by filling TSP powder with different weight percentage levels of 1%, 3%, and 5% by hand lay-up process continued by a compression molding technique. In addition, the single laminate basalt fiber ply orientations were configured by symmetric-quasi-isotropic. Density, tensile, flexural, impact, and hardness tests were performed to analyze the composite strength and modulus. The morphological traits and TSP elemental composition were analyzed by scanning electron microscope and EDAX, respectively. Results elucidate that the incorporated TSP particle in basalt-epoxy composite enhanced the mechanical properties. Overall compared with the B0 composite, the B3 composite exhibits the optimal result, the tensile strength, tensile modulus, flexural strength, flexural modulus, and impact strength increased by 98.4%, 68.9%, 70.73%, 53.12%, and 76.85% performance explicates, respectively, except hardness, which shows 43.5% higher in 5 wt% composite. The interfacial bonding of basalt-epoxy composites has been improved by the TSP particle curtailed the microvoids. The basalt-epoxy characteristics were adversely affected by TSP aggregation that occurred at 5 wt% laminate. The laminated composites are heavily bolstered by the performance of TSP particles and with the addition of ply orientation increased the strong interfacial bonding of TSP-epoxy-basalt interactions.