Investigation of the processing, the mechanical properties, and the morphology of short glass fiber-reinforced polypropylene-layered silicate composites

Abstract

Polypropylene composites containing layered silicate and glass fibers are prepared by melt compounding. To investigate the influence of the processing conditions on the mechanical properties and the morphology of short glass fiber-reinforced polypropylene-layered silicate composites, the process parameters are varied while preparing the composites. The processing conditions affect the mechanical properties and the morphology. The investigations suggest that a short glass fiber-reinforced polypropylene-layered silicate composite should be compounded at a maximum barrel temperature of 200°C, a throughput of 30 kg/h at a screw speed of 500 min-1 and a screw configuration, which introduces a large amount of shear energy into the composite. These processing conditions lead to a comparatively high specific mechanical energy input of 206 Wh/kg and to the best set of mechanical properties of the investigated materials. However, the morphology of the investigated short glass fiber-reinforced nanocomposites does not show significant differences and has to be investigated further.

Keywords

• compounding
• glass fibers
• mechanical properties
• nanocomposites
• processing