Effect of hollow glass microspheres addition on density reduction and mechanical properties of PA6/glass fibers composites

Abstract

Abstract The strategy of combining the traditional reinforcement of glass fibers (GF) with lighter hollow glass microspheres (HGM) can afford to fulfill the need for potential light-weight and high-strength modern materials required in various sectors, such as automotive and aerospace industry applications. This work fabricated composites of PA6/GF/HGM by melting blending in a co-rotating twin-screw extruder, and subsequently, injection molded. The effects of HGM content on the density, morphological and mechanical properties were investigated and the PA6/GF/HGM composites properties were compared to the properties of the traditional PA6/GF (70/30) wt% composite, widely used today in automotive industries. With the increase of HGM amount in the formulations, a reduction of between 3 and 12% in density was achieved with a slight reduction in its mechanical properties, showing that this new strategy can be applied to replace the PA6/GF (70/30) wt% composite, providing a considerable weight reduction for these materials.

Keywords

• polyamide composites
• glass microspheres
• glass fibers
• density eduction
• weight reduction