Paper number 1212

RECENT DEVELOPMENTS IN HOT COMPACTED FIBRE COMPOSITES

I. M. Ward, P.J. Hine and B. Brew

IRC in Polymer Science & Technology
University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT

Summary

In this paper recent research on the hot compaction process developed at Leeds University is presented. In this process, thick section homogeneous sheets of fibre composites are produced by melting a thin skin on the surface of each fibre, which on cooling recrystallises to bind the structure together to produce a consolidated, single material, composite. For automotive applications, hot compacted sheet based on polypropylene (PP geotextile fabrics) shows an excellent combination of mechanical properties, especially low temperature impact strength. A range of weave styles and cloth weights have been compared and properties such as thermal expansion and high temperature creep studied. A comparison with isotropic random mat short glass fibre reinforced PP and Twintex unidirectional glass fibre will be presented.

Keywords

fibre composites, hot compaction, polypropylene, polyethylene.