THE INFLUENCE OF HIGH-MODULUS CARBON FIBER ON THE STRUCTURE OF POLYETHER ETHER KETONE

Abstract

Nowadays, polymer-based carbon-plastics confidently displace common tribotechnical and structural materials (steel, aluminum, titanium, etc.) in the automotive, metallurgical, and agricultural industries. It happens due of the fact that carbon-plastics surpass steel and aluminum 5 and 7 times, respectively in terms of strength, and they are also characterized by low weight and ease of processing. An equally important factor is the possibility of manufacturing parts of various geometric shapes in one molding cycle, which also affects the attractiveness of using carbon plastics. In addition, products made of carbon plastics are characterized by low coefficients of friction and thermal linear expansion, high resistance to fatigue damage, mechanical shocks, solar radiation, corrosion, moisture, and high temperatures, while simultaneously reducing energy consumption during production 3—20 times. All the listed advantages of carbon plastics result from the interaction between the filler and the polymer matrix, which leads to a change in the structure of the materials. That is why studying this interaction and structure as a whole is an important step in the development of new materials. It is known from literary sources that its structure has a significant influence on the functional properties of a polymer composite: an increase in the degree of crystallinity leads to an increase in the strength, rigidity, and heat resistance of the polymer material. Considering the above, the purpose of the work was to study the influence of carbon fiber on the degree of crystallinity of polyether ether ketone. The article presents the results of X-ray analysis of carbon plastics based on Victrex150 G polyether ether ketone. The impact of compression moulding on the structure of composites is analyzed. It is shown that the carbon fiber structure is organized due to consolidation, while the processing of tableted samples into products by the method of compression moulding. The dependence of the crystallinity of carbon plastics on the content of Toray T700 carbon fiber is given. The expediency of conducting additional tests is shown to establish the influence of technological factors of compression moulding (temperature, load, exposure), as well as fiber length on the radiographic structure of the designed composite