Nucleation and Crystallization of PA6 Composites Prepared by T-RTM: Effects of Carbon and Glass Fiber Loading: Effects of carbon and glass fiber loading
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2019-10-01
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Abstract
Thermoplastic resin transfer molding (T-RTM) is attracting much attention due to the need for recyclable alternatives to thermoset materials. In this work, we have prepared polyamide-6 (PA6) and PA6/fiber composites by T-RTM of caprolactam. Glass and carbon fibers were employed in a fixed amount of 60 and 47 wt.%, respectively. Neat PA6 and PA6 matrices (of PA6-GF and PA6-CF) of approximately 200 kg/mol were obtained with conversion ratios exceeding 95%. Both carbon fibers (CF) and glass fibers (GF) were able to nucleate PA6, with efficiencies of 44% and 26%, respectively. The α crystal polymorph of PA6 was present in all samples. The lamellar spacing, lamellar thickness and crystallinity degree did not show significant variations in the samples with or without fibers as result of the slow cooling process applied during T-RTM. The overall isothermal crystallization rate decreased in the order: PA6-CF > PA6-GF > neat PA6, as a consequence of the different nucleation efficiencies. The overall crystallization kinetics data were successfully described by the Avrami equation. The lamellar stack morphology observed by atomic force microscopy (AFM) is consistent with 2D superstructural aggregates (n = 2) for all samples. Finally, the reinforcement effect of fibers was larger than one order of magnitude in the values of elastic modulus and tensile strength.
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Publisher Copyright: © 2019 by the authors.
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Thermoplastic , Caprolactam , Glass fibers , Carbon fibers , Crystallization , Elastic modulus , Tensile strength , Thermoplastic , Caprolactam , Glass fibers , Carbon fibers , Crystallization , Elastic modulus , Tensile strength , General Chemistry , Polymers and Plastics , Funding Info , We gratefully acknowledge the Basque Government by the funding received through the ELKARTEK 2017 Cooperative Fundamental Research project: ”Automotion Composites fabricated by RTM adapted to the 4.0 industrial philosophy (RTM4.0). The authors thank the ALBA Synchrotron Light facility for supporting the X-rays experiments at beamline BL11-NCD-SWEET and the funding by ALBA project nº 2017092338. The UPV/EHU team gratefully acknowledges the financial contribution of the Basque Government through grant IT1309-19. , We gratefully acknowledge the Basque Government by the funding received through the ELKARTEK 2017 Cooperative Fundamental Research project: ”Automotion Composites fabricated by RTM adapted to the 4.0 industrial philosophy (RTM4.0). The authors thank the ALBA Synchrotron Light facility for supporting the X-rays experiments at beamline BL11-NCD-SWEET and the funding by ALBA project nº 2017092338. The UPV/EHU team gratefully acknowledges the financial contribution of the Basque Government through grant IT1309-19.
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Zaldua , N , Maiz , J , de la Calle , A , García-Arrieta , S , Elizetxea , C , Harismendy , I , Tercjak , A & Müller , A J 2019 , ' Nucleation and Crystallization of PA6 Composites Prepared by T-RTM: Effects of Carbon and Glass Fiber Loading : Effects of carbon and glass fiber loading ' , Polymers , vol. 11 , no. 10 , 1680 , pp. 1680 . https://doi.org/10.3390/polym11101680