Molding of Filled Polymer Nanocomposites

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There has been considerable interest in lightweighting solutions for transportation, which is now growing in importance with the growth in production and acquisition of electric vehicles. Polymer composite materials offer lightweighting and part integration, as well as opportunities for thermal and electrical conductivity management. The addition of functional fillers to polymers is a common method to enhance properties such as the mechanical, thermal, and/or electrical performance of polymer matrices. Fillers include a broad range of particle types (inorganic or organic fillers), size and geometry (aspect ratio) and properties (electrical, thermal, and mechanical) enhancement. Glass and carbon fibers are mainly introduced to improve the mechanical properties of polymer matrices, while carbon-based fillers (e.g., carbon black, graphite fiber, graphene) improve the electrical and thermal conductivity properties of the resulting polymer composites. In the case of carbon-based fillers, it is also important to disperse the chosen fillers in the matrix, which could be a single polymer or polymer blend. There has been increasing demand for polymer based composite components in the areas of electronics, automotive, biomedicals, microsystems, and microelectromechanical systems. There is now increasing demand for electrically and thermally conductive components at larger scales to support components such as battery enclosures and fuel cell components in electrical vehicles requiring injection and compression molding techniques. One of the major challenges in developing electrically-thermally conductive components is to maintain the uniformity of conductivity properties over the entire part. There is a large body of literature with experimental data and modeling done at the small laboratory scale of sample. There is however a significant gap in the literature on the effects of flow behaviour on the filler distribution and subsequent conductivity properties for large components that would be produced in industrial practice. The entire chain of material system selection, mixing-dispersion of the filler in the polymer matrix and the molding processing step all contribute to the uniformity of conductivity properties. In addition, there is increasing interest in capturing the full process through simulation in a virtual process chain to be able to design products and processes in line with Industry 4.0. The long-term objective of this proposed research program is to be able to simulate the conductivity properties of nanoparticle filled polymers over large length scale differences to benefit advanced manufacturing in Canada. The short term objectives are to model and experimentally validate the nanoparticle distribution and subsequent conductivity properties, and provide HQP training 1) in small-scale systems, microinjection molding; 2) intermediate scale systems, conventional injection molding and 3) large scale systems, compression molding.