Processability of Pultrusion Using Natural Fiber and Thermoplastic Matrix

Nguyen-Chung, Tham; Friedrich, Klaus; Mennig, Günter

doi:https://doi.org/10.1155/2007/37123

Advances in Materials Science and Engineering

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Research Letter | Open Access

Volume 2007 | Article ID 037123 | https://doi.org/10.1155/2007/37123

Processability of Pultrusion Using Natural Fiber and Thermoplastic Matrix

Tham Nguyen-Chung,¹Klaus Friedrich,²and Günter Mennig¹

Academic Editor: D. Chen

Received02 Aug 2007

Accepted17 Oct 2007

Published25 Oct 2007

Abstract

Fundamental mechanisms of the pultrusion process using commingled yarns of polypropylene matrix and discontinuous flax fiber to produce thermoplastic profiles were investigated in numerical and experimental manners. Essential issue is the fact that all natural fibers are discontinuous by nature, which may negatively influence the processability. The pultrusion process will be only successful if the pulling force exerted on the solidified pultrudates can be transmitted to the regions of unmelted commingled yarns by “bridging over” those melted regions within the die. This can be realized by applying a sufficient number of small yarn bundles of high compactness rather than a thicker single bundle of lower compactness as the raw material. Furthermore, the possibility of adding extra melt into the yarn bundles by side-fed extrusion has been investigated showing that the impregnation can be improved only for the outer layers of yarns, which is owed to the high viscosity of the thermoplastic melt and the limited length of the die.

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Copyright

Copyright © 2007 Tham Nguyen-Chung et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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