Effects of short glass fibers on the mechanical properties of glass fiber fabric/PVC composites

Abstract

Fiber-reinforced composites using glass fiber and polyvinylchloride (PVC) have been used widely as architectural materials, electrical applications, automotive sector, and packing materials because of their reasonable price, chemical resistance, and dimensional stability. On the other hand, most of the composites are short fiber-reinforced PVC composites. In particular, in the case of fabric reinforced composites, undulated regions exist where there is only resin due to the characteristics of the weave construction, which causes a decrease in strength. In this paper, PVC was reinforced with chopped glass fibers with different lengths and contents to produce glass fiber fabric/PVC composites. The physical properties of the composites, such as thickness, density, volume fraction (Vf), and void content (Vc) were identified. The mechanical properties, including tensile strength, flexural strength, and interlaminar shear strength (ILSS) were also identified. A cross section of the composites was observed by scanning electron microscopy. Compared to the fabric reinforced composite without chopped glass fiber, the tensile strength was increased by 3.90% (from 316.15 MPa to 328.48 MPa at 5 wt.% chopped fibers with 3 mm length), flexural strength was increased by 7.15% (from 87.07 MPa to 93.30 MPa at 10 wt.% chopped fibers with 2 mm length), and ILSS was increased by 8.71% (from 7.34 MPa to 7.98 MPa at 10 wt.% chopped fibers with 1 mm length). Therefore, the critical fiber aspect ratio of chopped fiber works differently on each of the three mechanical properties.