The effect of fibre length and fibre concentration on strength of extruded long glass fibre reinforced thermoplastic sheets
January 11th, 2022
Published in the Journal of the Technical University of Gabrovo, Vol. 29 ‘2004 (49-54) March 2004.
Written by E. Selcuk Erdogan from Trakya University, Mech. Eng. Dept., Edirne, Turkey, and S. F Bush from UMIST, Manchester, UK.
Abstract
The mechanical properties of long glass fibre reinforced thermoplastics have had a wide area and importance in industrial works in recent years. In this work, the tensile and impact properties of extruded homopolymer polyproplylene and polypropylene-polyethylene co-polymer were studied, related to fibre length and fibre concentration. After burn off tests fibre length and fibre concentration of each sample have been found. From the tensile and impact tests it has been found that tensile strength and impact strength of extruded homopolymer polypropylene increase with increasing fibre length and fibre concentration. It has also been found that even small filling of glass fibre by polyethylene blends is increased with increasing fibre length and fibre concentration. As a result of impact tests it has been found that impact strength of extruded co-polymer polypropylene-polyethylene blends is decreased for the low fibre concentrations, then reached almost constant value with increasing fibre concentration and fibre length. It has also been found that even small filling of glass fibre by volume gives higher tensile strength properties.