Engineering Property Prediction Tools for Tailored Polymer Composite Structures (FY06 Annual Report)
Recently, long-fiber injection molded thermoplastics (LFTs) have generated great interest within the automotive industry as these materials can be used for structural applications in order to reduce vehicle weight. However, injection-molding of these materials poses a great challenge because of two main reasons: (i) no process models for LFTs have been developed that can be used to predict the processing of an LFT part, and (ii) no experimental characterization methods exist to fully characterize the as-formed LFT microstructure to determine the fiber orientation and length distributions and fiber dispersion that are critical for any process model development. This report summarizes the work conducted during the fiscal year 2006 (FY06) that includes (i) the assessment of current process modeling approaches, (ii) experimental evaluation of LFT microstructure and mechanical properties, and (iii) the computation of thermoelastic properties using the measured and predicted orientation distributions as well as the measured fiber length distribution. Our objective is two-fold. First, it is necessary to assess current process models and characterization techniques in order to determine their capabilities and limitations, and the necessary developments for LFTs. Second, before modeling the nonlinear behaviors of LFTs, it is essential to develop computation tools for predicting the elastic and thermoelastic properties of these materials.
- Research Organization:
- Pacific Northwest National Lab. (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC05-76RL01830
- OSTI ID:
- 982973
- Report Number(s):
- PNNL-16315; VT0505000; TRN: US201014%%17
- Resource Relation:
- Related Information: FY 2006 Progress Report for Automotive Lighweighting Materials, II:ii-124 - ii-135
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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