Fiber Orientation In Short Fiber Reinforced Thermoplastic Composites

The objective of this project basically is to study the fiber orientation in short fiber
reinforced thermoplastic composites especially at the geometry where the convergence
and divergence flow is expected to occur. The material used for the study is chopped
glass fiber 3mm in length as the reinforcement and high density polyethylene as the
matrix. The study also includes a comparison of fiber orientation and the mechanical
properties of the composites with different volume fraction of glass fiber. The volume
fraction used is 5%, I 0%, 15% and 20% of glass fiber. The mold for the sample is using
the standard shape for tensile test or called "dumbbell" shape. The advantage of this mold
is able to investigate both the fiber orientation and the mechanical properties using the
same mold geometry. The samples are produced using injection molding process with
controlled parameters. The samples are characterized using micrographic test for the fiber
orientation study and tensile test for the mechanical properties determination. The results
show the fiber orientation in the sample confirm with the expected result with slight
variation due to processing effects. While for the mechanical test show as the volume
fraction increase the Young Modulus also increase. Therefore can be concluded that
volume fraction of glass fiber have an effects to the fiber orientation and mechanical
properties of the composite.