Wettability and AFM studies of natural fibres and their composites

ANALÍA VÁZQUEZ; VERA ALVAREZ

Natural Fibre Reinforced Polymer Composites

Año: 2008;

This chapter resumes the methods most widely used to measure the wettability such as static and dynamic contact angle, capillary-rise method, zeta potential, inverse chromatography (IGC) and atomic force microscopy (AFM). The influence of several strategies used to improve the fibre/matrix adhesion is analyzed. The methods are described and the correlations between some of them are established. In addition, some measurements are related with the interfacial adhesion measurements like pull-out and microdebond tests.Although the mechanical properties of composites are strongly dependent on the fibre-matrix interfacial bonding that can be directly or indirectly measured from the interfacial adhesion tests; and that is related with the physical and chemical characteristics of fibre and matrix which can be determined from the wettability methods. The authors want to point out that there exist many other factors that affect the final composites performance and those measurements ae not always representative of the mechanical properties of the composites.