Reinforcement of mica on phthalonitrile resin and composites: Curing, thermal, mechanical and dielectric properties

High performance composites not only pursue high strength, light weight, but also need to have multifunctional characteristics. To further improve curing efficiency and mechanical properties of phthalonitrile resin (PN75) and give full play to its excellent thermal and dielectric properties, mica as reinforcement was introduced into PN75 to form particle-filled resin (Mica/PN75) and CFRP (Mica/PN75/CF) composites. The introduction of mica reduced the curing temperature of PN75 and improved the curing efficiency. The thermal stability of resin and composites was further improved. The bending strength of the two groups of mica reinforced resin increased by 44.87% and 55.97%, and the dielectric constant decreased from 3.3 to 2.7 and 2.5, respectively. The bending strength of the composites was increased by up to 19.9%, and the glass transition temperature of composites was increased by up to 26 °C after reinforcement. The multidirectional reinforcement of PN75 by mica was studied and analyzed in this work.