Muhammad Mujddid, Mohsin Hussain, Mohsin Ali Raza, Qasim Ali, Faizan Ali Ghauri

Department of Metallurgy and Materials Engineering, CEET

University of the Punjab, Lahore, Pakistan

Corresponding author name and email: Mohsin Ali Raza, mohsin.ceet@pu.edu.pk

This work aims to study the effect of graphene oxide (GO) coated-glass fibers on the mechanical properties of glass fibers/unsaturated polyester composites. GO was synthesized by ultra-sonication of graphite oxide in ethanol, which was produced by treating graphite powder by modified Hummers’ method. GO was found uniformly dispersed in ethanol. Woven glass fiber mats were impregnated in GO/ethanol suspension followed by vacuum drying to deposit GO on glass fibers. GO coated glass fibers were coated with unsaturated polyester resins by hand layup technique followed by curing under compression to develop sheets of GO-coated woven glass fiber/unsaturated polyester composites. Mechanical tests such as tensile, bend, impact and shear tests were carried on the composites’ samples cut out from the sheets. Fourier Transform Infrared spectroscopy was carried out to determine the bonding of GO with glass fibers. The results showed that mechanical properties of GO coated fibers composites were higher than the uncoated fiber composites.