Direct Processing of Long Fiber Reinforced Thermoplastic Composites and their Mechanical Behavior under Static and Dynamic Load

The mechanical behavior of fiber reinforced thermoplastic composites is mainly influenced by fiber length. However, fiber length is strongly reduced during processing. For this reason direct processing techniques are increasingly applied in order to avoid fiber fracture and thus to generate composites with long fibers. This work investigates the influence of fiber length especially on fatigue behavior of thermoplastic composites. The processing influences on fiber length of composites during injection molding compounding are thereby analyzed and quantified. It is thus shown how to directly influence fiber length in the composite.