Investigation of the effect of glass sphere and fiber reinforcement on thermal and mechanical properties in silicon matrix composites

The aim of this study is to investigate the usability of diatomite as a reinforcement material in silicon matrix composites. At the same time, the effects of diatomite on mechanical properties and thermal conductivity were also investigated.. Diatomite was gradually added to the main structure at 2.5%, 5%, 7.5%, 10% and 15% of the total volume, tensile-rupture, elongation, tear, hardness, density, LOI, FT-IR, TGA and thermal conductivity tests were performed for each ratio, and the composite samples were compared with the base compound as well as among each other. As a result of the mechanical and thermal tests, it is seen that the hardness increases for each% unit of diatomite added the tear strength decreases in direct proportion to the increasing rate of diatomite and the density increases for each% unit of diatomite a decrease was detected. Diatomite and mixed samples containing 0% - 7.5% and 15% diatomite were analyzed by FT-IR spectrometer, and no significant difference was found between the FT-IR spectra of the mixture samples with added diatomite. The reason for this is thought to be that the amount of silicon-oxygen and methyl-silicon bonds in vinyl methyl polysiloxane (VMQ) suppresses other distinctive bonds and also contains high silicon-oxygen bonds in its structure. In the samples we applied TGA analysis, it was observed that the addition of diatomite accelerates thermal degradation and does not have an effect on thermal stability.