Abstract
Sheet molding compounds (SMC) are discontinuously fiber-reinforced thermosets, attractive to the automotive industry due to their outstanding specific strength and stiffness, combined with a cost efficient manufacturing process. Increasingly important for structural components, a structural SMC-based improved resin formulation featuring no fillers is investigated in this study. The influence of fiber volume content, fiber length, and manufacturing induced fiber orientation on quasi-static and dynamic mechanical properties of vinylester-based SMC is characterized. Stiffness and strength increased with increasing fiber volume content for tensile, compression, and flexural loadings. Fiber length distribution did not significantly influence the mechanical properties of the material. The movement of the conveyor belt leads to an anisotropic fiber orientation and orientation-dependent mechanical properties. Acoustic emission coupled with machine learning algorithms enabled the investigation of the damage mechanisms of this discontinuous glass fiber SMC. The acoustic emission analysis was validated with micro computed tomography of damaged specimens. The dominant failure mechanisms of the SMC exposed to bending loading were matrix cracking and interface failure.
Highlights
Discontinuous fiber-reinforced polymeric composites are attractive materials, especially in the automotive industry, due to their high specific stiffness and strengths combined with low materials and manufacturing costs.Among these materials, sheet molding compounds (SMC) stand out due to the many favorable aspects of their production, providing the ability to manufacture structures at very high productivity rates combined with good part reproducibility, cost efficiency, and surface quality, as well as the ability to manufacture complex part geometries
This study aimed to prove the suitability of machine learning algorithms to process acoustic emission (AE) data and to identify different failure mechanisms for SMC materials
This study aimed to determine the influence of fiber volume content, fiber length, and fiber orientation on the mechanical properties of a glass fiber-reinforced SMC based on a vinylester resin
Summary
Discontinuous fiber-reinforced polymeric composites are attractive materials, especially in the automotive industry, due to their high specific stiffness and strengths combined with low materials and manufacturing costs. Among these materials, sheet molding compounds (SMC) stand out due to the many favorable aspects of their production, providing the ability to manufacture structures at very high productivity rates combined with good part reproducibility, cost efficiency, and surface quality, as well as the ability to manufacture complex part geometries. In 2016, SMCs, in combination with bulk molding compounds (BMC), were the most produced glass fiber-reinforced composites [2], highlighting the importance of this material class for numerous technical applications. The following literature review focuses on some advanced and structural SMC materials, so all of them feature a significant amount of fillers
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