Abstract: At present the current climate and energy crisis has highlighted the global need for more renewable energy generation. Offshore wind provides a reliable source of this green energy however the harsh environments these assets operate in result in frequent maintenance. The erosive force of rainfall inelastically colliding with the leading edge of the turbines causes the phenomenon, Leading Edge Erosion. Graphene oxide an oxidised allotrope of the superlative two-dimensional material graphene could provide suitable candidates in the development of impact resistant polymer composite coatings using testing regimes such as nanoindentation and dynamic mechanical analysis. This Thesis comparatively investigates the candidacy of unmodified graphene oxide and reduced graphene oxide polyurethane composites against a bioinspired modified graphene oxide polymer composites towards impact resistance and tensile loading.The Thesis reports the novel facile synthesis of the quadruple hydrogen bonding array, ureidopyrimidone (UPy) onto the parent graphene oxide sheet (UPyGO), taking inspiration from the hydrogen bonding exploitation of spider silk. This novel filler is extensively characterised and comparatively analysed against the parent graphene oxide and reduced graphene oxide to understand the differing properties. The reproducibility of the synthesis was tested and found a 6.20 ± 0.04% UPy functionalisation. The final chapter investigates the preparation of a complementary UPyGO-UPy-polyurethane composite and how it performs to the criterion needed for leading edge erosion protection. This work successfully reports that the addition of UPyGO into the polymer matrix and finds that the 0.033 wt.% UPyGO composite provided the best candidacy with decreases in the indentation stiffness of 77 ± 4%, and the indentation hardness decreased by 24 ± 0.4% which are key characteristics for erosion protection candidacy.
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