Influence of processing on morphology in short aramid fiber reinforced elastomer compounds

Abstract

The rubber industry is nowadays facing the general increase of raw materials as the customers are confronted with rising prices for energy. Therefore there is a need for higher durability of elastomer applications. Short fiber reinforced elastomers can contribute to the improvement of dynamic and wear properties. To determine structure–property relationships in short fiber reinforced elastomer compounds it is of crucial interest to know the contributions of fiber aspect ratio, volume content, orientation and fiber–elastomer interaction. Therefore the influence of different processing conditions and fiber contents on the resulting morphology and macroscopic properties was investigated in this article by the help of fluorescence and confocal laser microscopy using a transparent ethylene‐propylene‐diene rubber (EPDM) matrix. It was found that the processing induced fiber breakage was the key factor in determining the composite morphology and subsequent physical properties. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 130: 1682–1690, 2013

Structurally different short aramid fiber–reinforced thermoplastic polyurethane

“…On the other hand, Twaron–TPU composite shows more or less homogeneous deformation behavior like neat TPU upto 5 phr of fiber loading. Unlike in the case of Technora–TPU composite, the Twaron fiber undergoes a severe processing‐induced fiber breakage, which reduces its initial fiber length from 6 to 1 mm or even lesser . These broken fibers are not able to restrict the smooth segmental orientations of the TPU to an applied strain.…”

2D Carbon Fiber Reinforced High Density Polyethylene Multi-Layered Laminated Composite Panels: Structural, Mechanical, Thermal, and Morphological Profile

“…However, these polymers cannot approach the typical properties of engineering or high performance polymers because from the mechanical point of view these polymers are taken as low strength materials [13] . So, these thermoplastics are combined with some reinforcing agent like short or long natural fibers [14] , inorganic fibers [15] and synthetic fibers [16] etc. This is usually done to cover the frontier line separation between commodity and engineering polymers [17] .…”

Validity of Amontons’ law for run-in short-cut aramid fiber reinforced elastomers: The effect of epoxy coated fibers

“…The composites containing EF-fibers have a steeper curve compared to that for the composites containing SF-fibers for all reinforcement directions. The elastic moduli were defined at a strain of 2%, assuming the material behaves linearly below that strain value [15]. It can be seen that the steady-state coefficients of friction of those composites decrease to approximately 4 times lower than that at the beginning of the tests.…”