DENSITY AND COMPRESSION STRENGTH PROPERTIES OF PARTICULATED AND FIBER REINFORCED POLYMER COMPOSITES

The companies give advice values for the resin, accelerator and hardener ratio used in the production of composite materials. different practices and environmental conditions during the manufacturing stages are effective on the mechanical properties of the final product. it is useful to perform some tests before the final production. in this study, the determined values for the matrix structure are 98.5% polyester, 1% hardener and 0.5% accelerator. the compression test specimen dimensions are respectively diameter and height of 50x100 mm. the reinforcement material chopped strand e glass fiber of 6 mm in length has been used starting from 22% to 88% in 11% increments in 7 different amount of volume. the other reinforcement material of quartz particles with the sizes in the range of 0 to 0.125 mm, have been used starting from 5% to 45% in 5% increments up to 9 different amount of volume. the densities of the prepared samples of fiber and particle reinforced composites at the end of the determined standby time of 7 days and the compressive tests have been carried out. as a result of the experiments, the highest compressive strengths obtained of “fiber composite” with 55% amount of volume was 45.190 n/mm^2 and of the particle quartz composite with 10% amount of volume was 131.009 n/mm^2. the lowest densities in these amounts of volume have been obtained respectively, 1.142 g/cm^3 in fiber composite and 1.351 g/cm^3 in quartz particle composite.