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Synergy of Fiber Surface Chemistry and Flow: Multi-Phase Transcrystallization in Fiber-Reinforced Thermoplastics

Fiber-reinforced polymer composites are largely employed for their improved strength with respect to unfilled matrices. Considering semi-crystalline materials under relevant processing conditions, the applied pressure and flow induce shear stresses at the fiber–polymer interface. These stresses may...

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Autores principales: Looijmans, Stan F. S. P., Spanjaards, Michelle M. A., Puskar, Ljiljana, Cavallo, Dario, Anderson, Patrick D., van Breemen, Lambèrt C. A.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9694137/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36432976
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/polym14224850
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author Looijmans, Stan F. S. P.
Spanjaards, Michelle M. A.
Puskar, Ljiljana
Cavallo, Dario
Anderson, Patrick D.
van Breemen, Lambèrt C. A.
author_facet Looijmans, Stan F. S. P.
Spanjaards, Michelle M. A.
Puskar, Ljiljana
Cavallo, Dario
Anderson, Patrick D.
van Breemen, Lambèrt C. A.
author_sort Looijmans, Stan F. S. P.
collection PubMed
description Fiber-reinforced polymer composites are largely employed for their improved strength with respect to unfilled matrices. Considering semi-crystalline materials under relevant processing conditions, the applied pressure and flow induce shear stresses at the fiber–polymer interface. These stresses may strongly enhance the nucleation ability of the fiber surface with respect to the quiescent case. It is thus possible to assume that the fiber features are no longer of importance and that crystallization is dominated by the effect of flow. However, by making use of an advanced experimental technique, i.e., polarization-modulated synchrotron infrared microspectroscopy (PM-SIRMS), we are able to show that the opposite is true for the industrially relevant case of isotactic polypropylene (iPP). With PM-SIRMS, the local chain orientation is measured with micron-size spatial resolution. This orientation can be related to the polymer nucleation density along the fiber surface. For various combinations of an iPP matrix and fiber, the degree of orientation in the cylindrical layer that develops during flow correlates well with the differences in nucleation density found in quiescent conditions. This result shows that the morphological development during processing of polymer composites is not solely determined by the flow field, nor by the nucleating ability of the fiber surface alone, but rather by a synergistic combination of the two. In addition, using finite element modeling, it is demonstrated that, under the experimentally applied flow conditions, the interphase structure formation is mostly dominated by the rheological characteristics of the material rather than perturbations in experimental conditions, such as shear rate, layer thickness, and temperature. This once again highlights the importance of matrix–filler interplay during flow and, thus, of material selection in the design of hybrid and lightweight composite technologies.
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spelling pubmed-96941372022-11-26 Synergy of Fiber Surface Chemistry and Flow: Multi-Phase Transcrystallization in Fiber-Reinforced Thermoplastics Looijmans, Stan F. S. P. Spanjaards, Michelle M. A. Puskar, Ljiljana Cavallo, Dario Anderson, Patrick D. van Breemen, Lambèrt C. A. Polymers (Basel) Article Fiber-reinforced polymer composites are largely employed for their improved strength with respect to unfilled matrices. Considering semi-crystalline materials under relevant processing conditions, the applied pressure and flow induce shear stresses at the fiber–polymer interface. These stresses may strongly enhance the nucleation ability of the fiber surface with respect to the quiescent case. It is thus possible to assume that the fiber features are no longer of importance and that crystallization is dominated by the effect of flow. However, by making use of an advanced experimental technique, i.e., polarization-modulated synchrotron infrared microspectroscopy (PM-SIRMS), we are able to show that the opposite is true for the industrially relevant case of isotactic polypropylene (iPP). With PM-SIRMS, the local chain orientation is measured with micron-size spatial resolution. This orientation can be related to the polymer nucleation density along the fiber surface. For various combinations of an iPP matrix and fiber, the degree of orientation in the cylindrical layer that develops during flow correlates well with the differences in nucleation density found in quiescent conditions. This result shows that the morphological development during processing of polymer composites is not solely determined by the flow field, nor by the nucleating ability of the fiber surface alone, but rather by a synergistic combination of the two. In addition, using finite element modeling, it is demonstrated that, under the experimentally applied flow conditions, the interphase structure formation is mostly dominated by the rheological characteristics of the material rather than perturbations in experimental conditions, such as shear rate, layer thickness, and temperature. This once again highlights the importance of matrix–filler interplay during flow and, thus, of material selection in the design of hybrid and lightweight composite technologies. MDPI 2022-11-10 /pmc/articles/PMC9694137/ /pubmed/36432976 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/polym14224850 Text en © 2022 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Looijmans, Stan F. S. P.
Spanjaards, Michelle M. A.
Puskar, Ljiljana
Cavallo, Dario
Anderson, Patrick D.
van Breemen, Lambèrt C. A.
Synergy of Fiber Surface Chemistry and Flow: Multi-Phase Transcrystallization in Fiber-Reinforced Thermoplastics
title Synergy of Fiber Surface Chemistry and Flow: Multi-Phase Transcrystallization in Fiber-Reinforced Thermoplastics
title_full Synergy of Fiber Surface Chemistry and Flow: Multi-Phase Transcrystallization in Fiber-Reinforced Thermoplastics
title_fullStr Synergy of Fiber Surface Chemistry and Flow: Multi-Phase Transcrystallization in Fiber-Reinforced Thermoplastics
title_full_unstemmed Synergy of Fiber Surface Chemistry and Flow: Multi-Phase Transcrystallization in Fiber-Reinforced Thermoplastics
title_short Synergy of Fiber Surface Chemistry and Flow: Multi-Phase Transcrystallization in Fiber-Reinforced Thermoplastics
title_sort synergy of fiber surface chemistry and flow: multi-phase transcrystallization in fiber-reinforced thermoplastics
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9694137/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36432976
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/polym14224850
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