Manufacture of Fabric Reinforced Thermoplastic Composites with High Fiber Volume Fraction

Abstract

In fiber reinforced thermosetting plastic (FRP) the fiber volume fraction is always up to 60 percent, but in fiber reinforced thermoplastic (FRTP) it is low to about 30 percent which greatly limit their performance. In this paper, for increasing the fiber volume fraction of thermoplastic composite, a new impregnation method for molding continuous fiber reinforced thermoplastic was explored; the fiber volume fraction was significantly raised to 60 percent which is equal to that of FRPs. Then the tensile property was investigated and made a contrast with FRP with the same reinforcement fiber. The results showed that both the FRP and FRTP composites have the similar tensile properties and indicated that the molding method is effective for FRTP manufacture.