Moisture effects on vibration response of SMA particulate epoxy composite

ABSTRACT High performance composites are the need of the day owing to their high-tailorable high-specific properties. Various composites like particulate composites, FRP are extensively used for various engineering applications. Recently, attention is being paid on smart composites where smart materials are being incorporated in plastics for developing new group of composites to enable the usage of plastics in structural engineering applications. One example is the incorporation of SMA particulates in epoxy matrix. However, environmental conditions greatly influence polymer composite performance. Thus, experimental studies are carried out to study the effect on vibration characteristics of SMA particulate epoxy composite when exposed to sea and fresh water environments. To facilitate these experiments, a test rig is fabricated, in which vibrations are measured using ADXL345 accelerometer. Investigations indicated an increase in amplitude of vibrations with increase in moisture.