Investigation of deformation mechanism in polypropylene/glass fiber composite

A great amount of work has been done over the past few years to understand the structure-properties relationship in polypropylene/glass fiber composites. This is because of the very fast-growing rate of polypropylene applications in the automotive and other industries. This work focused on the role of glass fibers and fiber-matrix adhesion on deformation mechanism. Composites with different fiber content, with and without adhesion promoter, were fabricated. Tensile tests and microscopy techniques were conducted. Based on the results, a physical model has been proposed that illustrates the initiation and growth of the damage under static loading condition. According to this work, the introduction of glass fibers shifts the deformation mechanism from shear yielding to crazing. Although crazes propagate in a different manner in composites containing standard and treated fibers, no influence of interfacial adhesion was observed on craze thickening phenomenon. (C) 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.