Significance of the type of reinforcement on the physicomechanical behavior of short glass fiber and short carbon fiber‐reinforced polypropylene composites

Abstract

In the present work, short glass fiber (SGF) and short carbon fiber (SCF)‐reinforced polypropylene (PP) composites are fabricated using twin‐screw extrusion and injection molding techniques. The SGF and SCF are reinforced as a single and hybrid reinforcement into the PP matrix with the same weight percentage (wt%) and the obtained composites are characterized for physicomechanical properties. It is observed that the tensile and flexural strength and modulus of elasticity of PP are improved by increasing the weight percent of reinforcement in the composite. The highest value is observed for composite with 30 wt% of SCF reinforcement; hybrid composite with 10 and 20 wt% of the mixture of SGF and SCF proves to outperform the other composites with the same weight percent of SGF and SCF added individually. The notched Izod impact strength of SGF + PP composite at 30 wt% is found to be the highest amongst all. Furthermore, the increased presence of SCF improved the tensile and flexural properties; however, it was not able to improve the impact strength significantly.