Engineering Faculty Internship Initiative: Reduced Fiber Damage in Injection Molding and Extrusion

纤维损伤是注射成型和挤出成型的主要问题。在这些过程中，纤维作为增强材料的全部优点没有得到充分发挥，因为纤维被缩短到原来长度的一小部分。先前的研究已经检查了损伤机制，目的是了解如何改变这一过程以保持更长的纤维。很明显，纤维暴露于熔体、机械和其他纤维中会导致纤维损坏，尽管每个过程的程度还没有得到彻底的调查。将进行量身定制的实验来揭示纤维损伤的机制。将进行实验，以检查添加不同形式的初始材料，如粉末树脂/纤维，不同长径比的封装颗粒；添加的纤维与树脂分离在不同的区域和加工条件下产生的纤维降解。如果这项研究的潜在影响很大，因为它将直接影响注射成型和挤出这两个大批量工艺。减少纤维损伤意味着用这些工艺制造的部件的强度、刚度和冲击性能将大大高于目前的技术水平。//

Fiber damage is a major problem in injection molding and extrusion. The full benefit of fibers as a reinforcement is not attained in these processes because the fibers are reduced to a fraction of their original length. Prior research have examined the damage mechanisms with the aim of understanding how the process can be changed to maintain longer fibers. It is clear that it is the exposure of the fibers to the melt, machinery and other fibers that cause fiber damage, although the extent of each process has not been investigated thoroughly. Tailored experiments will be performed to reveal the mechanisms of fiber damage. Experiments will be performed to examine addition of the initial material in different forms, such as powder resin/fibers, encapsulated pellets with different aspect ratios; addition of the fibers separate from the resin in different zones and the processing conditions in the resulting fiber degradation. The potential impact if this research is large since it will directly impact injection molding and extrusion which are high volume processes. Reduced fiber damage implies that the strength, stiffness and impact properties of components made with these processes will be considerably higher than the present state of the art.//