Available online at www.sciencedirect.com ScienceDirect Materials Today: Proceedings 22 (2020) 2732–2740 www.materialstoday.com/proceedings 2214-7853 © 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the 2nd International Conference on Materials Manufacturing and Modelling, ICMMM – 2019. ICMMM 2019 Rheological Properties and Curing Behaviour of Epoxy-Alumina Nanocomposites Veerabhadrayya Hiremath a* , Dharmendra Kumar Shukla b a Department of Mechanical Engineering, K.L.E Institute of Technology, Hubballi -580030, India b Department of Mechanical Engineering, Motilal Nehru National Institute of Technology Allahabad -21100, India Abstract In the present paper, effect of alumina nanoparticles on rheological properties of epoxy-alumina suspension has been investigated. Rheo-kinetic evaluation of nanocomposite was also conducted to find out the effect on gelation and vitrification behaviour of the epoxy-alumina nanocomposite. Suspension of nano particles in epoxy resin was achieved with and without the use of solvent (acetone) named as well dispersed (ultrasonication was used for dispersion of nanoparticles) and poorly dispersed (manual mixing) samples respectively. The results indicated that viscosity of epoxy-alumina nanoparticle suspension decreased, compared to that of neat epoxy at all the shear rates and wt.% of nanoparticles. Viscosity of suspension showed shear thinning behavior for alumina nanoparticles. Storage and loss moduli of suspension showed solid like behavior for both the types of dispersion with the increase in frequency. The gel time increased with the increase in wt.% of nanocomposites. The gelation of neat epoxy took less time in comparison to alumina nanoparticle. © 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the 2nd International Conference on Materials Manufacturing and Modelling, ICMMM – 2019. Keywords: cure kinetics, rheological properties, Rheo-kinetic, polymer nanocomposites ; 1. Introduction Rheology finds application in industries such as foods[1-2], paints[3], inks, cosmetics and pharmaceuticals. In food industry, rheology is used in predicting the mouth feel of food items such as chocolate whereas in dairy products it is used to study the fat droplets of the product and is also used to study the spreadability and hardness of * Veerabhadrayya. Tel.: +91-9900506604; fax: +91-0836 - 2330688. E-mail address: vrhiremath@kleit.ac.in