Assignment 10

Composites

This week, I, George and Vaibhav teamed up to make a composite out of epoxy resin.
Composites are formed by combining materials together to form an overall structure with properties that differ from that of the individual components. The new material may be preferred for many reasons. Common examples include materials which are stronger, lighter, or less expensive when compared to traditional materials.

Prerequisites

To make a composite we require the following items

• Cloth like materials (Jute sheets, cotton sheets )
• Newspaper
• Gloves
• Epoxy Resin
• Hardener
• Weighing Scale
• Bowl (for mixing)
• Spatula (for mixing)
• Wood sheets
• Cling wrap

The process

The following process was followed to make a composite sheet:

• Wrap two wood sheets completely with cling wrap for using on top and base of the composite mix.
• Mix epoxy resin and Hardener in the ratio 2:1 in a bowl.
• 50g of hardener was used for 100g of resin. After pouring the resin and hardener, it is stirred for 2-3 minutes until the mixture becomes warm (exothermic reaction) and more viscous.
• On top of the wood sheet, each layer of jute sheet, white sack piece and newspaper are placed alternatively with the mixture applied on it.
• 7 layers of materials (jute shheet + white sack piece ) are placed. Newspaper is placed in between the layers to ensure proper spreading of the epoxy mixture.
• Finally the wood sheet is placed on top the last layer and weight is applied on top for equal transfer.
• Excess eposxy is poured back to the container by tilting.
• We used a heavy bench vice to add weight on the composite.
• This arrangement is kept for 24 - 48 hours to set.
• The final outcome was laser cut to make a funky looking speech bubble.

 

Images of the process

Colorful Speech Bubble

Having fun with remaining epoxy

Once the composites were left for setting, we had some epoxy-hardener mixture remaining. We used it to make some fun items like: