A NOVEL TECHNIQUE FOR DETERMINING THE 3D SPATIAL-DISTRIBUTION OF GLASS-FIBERS IN POLYMER COMPOSITES

Over the past ten years, conventional 2D optical reflection microscopy has become a standard tool for inferring the fibre orientation distri butions of both short- and continuous-fibre-reinforced composites. Rec ently, there has been a growing interest in determining the correlatio n of 3D fibre waviness and ply misalignment with compressive strength and failure mechanisms in unidirectional composites. Conventional opti cal reflection microscopy could still be used to investigate these phe nomena by the analysis of multiple, polished and prepared sample secti ons and correlating fibre images between sections. However, we believe that the non-destructive, optical sectioning inherent in the confocal laser scanning microscope (CLSM) will make the CLSM a new standard re search tool. 3D spatial distributions are reported for two totally dif ferent composites: (i) continuous, unidirectional glass fibres in a mu ltiple ply, T800 epoxy and (ii) short glass fibres in polyoxymethylene which has been hydrostatically extruded.