Fabrication and Analysis of Long Fiber Reinforced Polypropylene Prepared via Injection Molding

Fiber reinforcement leads to an improvement in mechanical properties of composites. In particular, long fiber thermoplastics (LFT) show more remarkable enhancement in the properties than short fiber thermoplastics (SFT). In this study, different fiber lengths, fiber loadings, and processing methods were considered to understand their effects on the physical properties more in-depth. It was found that significant breakage of fibers occurred during the screw based injection molding, which yielded a significant reduction in the properties. The orientation of fiber was observed experimentally and compared with the result of numerical simulation. [graphic not available: see fulltext]