Effect of Glass Reinforced Epoxy (GRE) pipe filled with Geopolymer Materials for Piping Application: Compression Properties

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to achieve the highest compressive strength of glass reinforced epoxy pipe with the geopolymer filler content of weight percentage that were used in glass reinforced epoxy pipe. The samples were prepared by using the filament winding method. The effect of weight percentage of geopolymer materials in epoxy hardener was studied under mechanical testing, which is using the compression test. A series of glass reinforced epoxy pipe and glass reinforced epoxy pipe filled with 10 - 40 weight percentage geopolymer filler which is white clay were prepared. The compression strength of the glass reinforced epoxy pipe filled geopolymer materials is determined using Instron Universal Testing under compression mode. It was found that compressive strength for samples with white clay geopolymer filler are much higher compare to glass reinforced epoxy pipe without geopolymer filler. Moreover, the compressive strength of glass reinforced epoxy pipe filled with white clay geopolymer filler was increased from 10 wt% to 30 wt% of geopolymer content. However, the compressive strength of glass reinforced epoxy pipe with white clay geopolymer filler suddenly decreased when added to 40 wt%. The results indicated that the blending of geopolymer materials in epoxy system can be obtained in this study.