Natural Fiber Suspensions in Thermoplastic Polymers I. Analysis of Fiber Damage During Processing

TERENZI, ANDREA; KENNY, JOSÉ M; BARBOSA, SILVIA ELENA

JOURNAL OF APPLIED POLYMER SCIENCE

Wiley

Año: 2007 vol. 103 p. 2501 - 2506

0021-8995

The final properties of the composites materials are strongly dependent on the residual aspect ratio, orientation and distribution of the fibers, which are determined by the processing conditions. In the present work is a systematic study of the influence of natural fiber concentration on its damage during all of steps involved in the composite compounding. The system under study is cellulose fiber reinforced polypropylene. The fiber geometrical parameters, length, diameter and aspect ratio are measured and their statistical distributions are assessed for each concentration. It is found that the higher the fiber concentration, the lower the fiber damage. These results evidence a different behavior between the damage of flexible natural fiber and rigid ones. The results are analyzed in terms of fiber concentration regimes, fiber-fiber interaction, flexibility and entanglements. Two competitive mechanism of the fiber interaction are proposed for explaining the fiber damage behavior of the flexible natural fiber suspensions.