Experimental Study of Fiber-Matrix Separation and Fiber Density Distributions in Fiber Suspensions

摘要

Defects such as fiber density distributions and matrix separation are commonly encountered when molding polymer composites. Only in the last two decades this problem has been acknowledged by researchers. Such defects are an expensive source of inefficiency that has proved difficult to control and predict. This paper presents results obtained from an experimental setup using pressed samples of silicon oil containing carbon fibers. It is shown that increasing the closing velocity of the mold and the viscosity of the matrix leads to a lower chance of fiber-matrix separation, whereas a growing fiber weight content of the mixture causes a higher chance of separation. It is also shown that there is not only fiber-matrix separation in the flow front but also within the molded charge.