Study of fiber morphology characteristics of discontinuous carbon-fiber-reinforced indium tin oxide transparent conductive film by image analysis method

Abstract

In discontinuous fiber-reinforced composites, short fibers act as reinforcing materials, and their morphological characteristics (length and orientation) can greatly affect the properties of the composites, such as tensile, electrical, or thermal conductivity. There is a very important issue in describing the morphological characteristics of reinforcing fibers, but the disorder of short fibers increases the difficulty in resolving issue. In this study, an image processing method was used to extract the morphological characteristics of discontinuous fibers in composites, and the conductive properties of short-carbon-fiber-reinforced indium tin oxide (ITO) films were analyzed. Among them, the effective length of the fibers consistently correlated with the surface resistance of the composites. At the same time, in this study, we analyzed the relationship between the area ratio of different carbon materials (carbon fiber, carbon nanotubes, and graphene) and the surface resistance of their composites, and also extended the application of the image processing method.