Investigation and analysis of glass fabric/PVC composite laminates processing parameters

Abstract

In this work, the effects of processing parameters including temperature, time, and pressure on the properties of amorphous polyvinyl chloride (PVC)/fiberglass thermoplastic composite laminates were evaluated. The film stacking and hot pressing procedure was used to produce the composite laminates, and samples with [0/90]10 layup and thickness of 3 mm were produced. Flexural strength and modulus of the samples were measured using three-point bending test (according to ASTM D790 standard test method), and microscopic images were used to evaluate the failure mechanisms and impregnation quality. The effects of the parameters on the strength were studied using analysis of variance (ANOVA), and it was found that processing temperature has the maximum effect on the products strength and increase of the temperature up to 230°C increases the flexural strength while more increase of temperature results in the matrix degradation and strength reduction. Also, processing time improves the wetting and impregnation quality; however, more increase of the processing time results in the matrix degradation and excessive reduction of the strength.

Keywords

• flexural modulus
• flexural strength
• glass fibers
• thermoplastic composites