Measurement of fiber orientation distribution in injection-molded composites with high filler content

Short-fiber-reinforced composites are widely used in a number of industries and applications, including in the transportation industry, and in business machine, durable consumer items, and sporting goods. Properties of fiber-reinforced composite depend on its fiber orientation distribution. Thus, knowing the fiber orientation is of great importance, and a number of researchers have been interested in developing useful and accurate techniques for determining the fiber orientation in injection-molded parts formed from short-fiber composite. However, out-of-plane orientation was preformed manually and difficulties arise when employing the technique in the case of composites with high fiber contents, over 50wt.%. In this research, short-glass fiber-reinforced polyamide 6 specimens produced using two different plate-shaped cavities having three different thicknesses ranging from 2mm to 4mm and with the fiber contents ranging from 30wt.% to 65wt.% are carried out using injection molding. The three-dimensional (...