Evaluation of Mechanical Characteristics for Mineral Cast Materials with Varying Resin Content

Abstract

Alternative materials are under study, to improve the stiffness and strength of the machine tool structure and to reduce the geometrical inaccuracies caused due to positional errors developed by conventional materials. The mechanical properties exhibited by mineral-cast structures such as high damping and high structural stiffness along with good strength and reduced weight make them attractive as alternative material. However, the mechanical properties of the material vary with the proportion of components in the mixture. This study attempts to evaluate the mechanical characteristics of mineral-cast material with varying epoxy content in the mixture. The epoxy content in the mixture is varied between 10% and 18% and the mechanical characteristics such as compressive strength, tensile strength, and Young's modulus are evaluated to arrive at an optimum composition of mixture. Granite which has high compressive strength is selected and crushed into fine and coarse particles and used as aggregate. It is mixed with epoxy resin to prepare the test specimen by pouring the mixture into a wooden mold of required size and shape. The mixture is cured for 1 week in order to obtain better results. It is observed that with increase in resin content from 10% to 14%, properties, such as stiffness and strength improve and then it starts diminishing. A combination with 12% epoxy resin and 88% aggregate material is observed to produce favorable mechanical properties at an optimum cost.