Discrete Glass Fibre Reinforced Polymer Composites: Results from Blow Moulding and Thermoforming
July 7th, 2003
Paper to 19th Annual Meeting of Polymer Processing Society, Melbourne, Australia, 7th-10th July 2003
S F Bush with J D Tonkin and F G Torres
Abstract
Ref 1 (in the Society’s Carl Klason [1999] memorial issue of International Polymer Processing) summarised the main experimental and theoretical results from a major long-term programme of research to produce and apply long glass fibre compounds to the extrusion of pipes, and the injection moulding of relatively complex shapes.
This work has been commercialised over the last 10 years under the trade name SAFIRE – the acronym for Self Assembling Fibre Reinforcement – which records the fact that a major part of the technology is concerned with the use of fibre management devices which cause fibres, above a certain length dependent on concentration, to form themselves into coherent mat structures within the melt as it flows towards the shaping die or moulds. These fibre management devices have been protected by international patents during the on-going commercial exploitation phase. The formation of these all-important mat structures is dependent on the number N of virtual touches experienced by one fibre in the presence of the others. N is give as A.c(l/d) where A depends on the flow field. This paper records new results obtained with this technology for blowmoulding and for thermoforming of extruded sheet.
References
[1] S F Bush, Long Glass-Fibre Reinforcement of Thermoplastics, International Polymer Processing 14 (1999) 282-90.
[2] S F Bush, Fibre reinforced polymer compositions and process and apparatus for production thereof, US Patent 5 264 261 (1993)
[3] S F Bush, Filament Separation in Liquids, US patent 5 035 848 (1991)
[4] S F Bush, F Yilmaz, P F Zhang, Impact strengths of injection moulded polypropylene long-glass fibre composites, Plast Rubber Composites (1995) 24 (3), 139-147.
[5] S F Bush, M Dreiza, J D Tonkin, Blow moulding of long-glass fibre composites, Plast Rubber Composites (1999) 28, 379-384.
[6] F G Torres and S F Bush, Sheet extrusion and thermoforming of discrete long-glass fibre reinforced polypropylene, Composites Part A. 31 (2000), 1289-94.
[7] D R Blackburn and O K Ademosu, Investigation of the production of rotationally moulded composites, Proc 9th Intl Conf Fibre Reinforced Composites, Ed A G Gibson, Conf Design Consultants publ (2002), 402-07.