Continuous Consolidation of Commingled Glass and Polypropylene Roving

Abstract

Commingled roving is made up of a heterogeneous mixture of glass and thermoplastic fibers in the solid state. This material can be used in pultrusion forming and injection molding operations. In many of these processes, the commingled material must first be consolidated into a tape form. In this research, a continuous consolidation process was developed. The consolidation quality of the pultruded tape as a function of process and equipment parameters were assessed using flexural testing, glass fiber weight content, and scanning electron microscopy. Results showed that pins have strong effects on distributive and dispersive mixing of the glass fiber in the polymer matrix. Simple models are developed to simulate the polymer flow through the fiber bundle.