The plastics industry is going "high-tech." The burgeoning growth of the past decade is largely due to the encroachment into application niches formerly occupied by metals. The automotive industry is finding innovative applications not only because modern plastics have the high strength, light weight, ease of processing, and environmental resistance that make them possible, but because they are low cost as well. The electronics industry has found that miniaturization makes no other material choice possible for many applications. One of the endearing characteristics of plastics (especially thermoplastics) is the ability to be tailor-made for the application. Chemical additives, fillers, reinforcing fibers, and even polymer blends add to an already sizeable cornucopia of neat thermoplastic resins.This paper evaluates the electrical conductivity of a carbon fiber-filled resin in terms of how it is affected by selected variables -- e.g., flow orientation, carbon fiber concentration, wall thickness, and injection speed.
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