THERMOPLASTICS COMPOSITES WITH DUCTILE FIBER COATINGS BASED ON UHMWPE- A STUDY ON SHORT FIBER GR NYLON-6

Glass microscope slides were initially used to develop a technique for bonding UHMWPE films on to glass and polyamides respectively, as well as to provide a simple physical model for interlayered fiber composit es. Further experiments were carried out on glass fibers coated with U HMWPE from a xylene solution, in order to evaluate the applicability o f the above technique and of the physical model in actual composite sy stems. Although great difficulties were encountered in achieving a wel l bonded uniform coating on the glass fibers the results have confirme d the viability of the approach: the impact strength of compression mo lded glass reinforced Nylon plaques, measured with an instrumented fal ling weight apparatus, was increased considerably with only a correspo nding small loss in flexural modulus. Dynamic mechanical analysis resu lts indicate that a UHMWPE interlayer substantially increases the tan 5 of the short fiber composite over a wide temperature range, albeit w ith some reduction in modulus.