Plasma Nanocoatings Developed to Control the Shear Strength of Polymer Composites

All reinforcements for polymer-matrix composites must be coated with a suitable material in the form of a thin film to improve compatibility and interfacial adhesion between the reinforcement and the polymer matrix. In this study, plasma nanotechnology was used to synthetize such functional nanocoatings using pure tetravinylsilane (TVS) and its mixtures with oxygen gas (O(2)) as precursors. The plasma-coated glass fibers (GFs) were unidirectionally embedded in a polyester resin to produce short composite beams that were analyzed by a short-beam-shear test to determine the shear strength characterizing the functionality of the nanocoatings in a GF/polyester composite. The developed plasma nanocoatings allowed controlling the shear strength between 26.2–44.1 MPa depending on deposition conditions, i.e., the radiofrequency (RF) power and the oxygen fraction in the TVS/O(2) mixture. This range of shear strength appears to be sufficiently broad to be used in the design of composites.