Influence of fiber diameter on impact tensile properties of injection-molded long glass fiber reinforced polyamide

Applications of fiber reinforced plastics have been expanding due to improvement of not only fuel efficiency but also the motion performance of some recent vehicles. Especially, the demand for injection-molded fiber reinforced thermoplastics is expected to increase because of their superior moldability, productivity and recyclability. In this study, the influence the fiber diameter has on the impact tensile properties of long glass-fiber reinforced polyamide (GF/PA) is investigated using the split Hopkinson pressure bar method. Prior to the tensile tests, an investigation of the fiber-orientation distribution was conducted in order to cut out specimens with the same fiber orientation angle from the injection molded plate. Two types of specimens, referred to as specimens with high- and low orientation angle, were manufactured using glass fibers with average diameters of 13, 17, 23 μm. In the tensile test, the GF/PA with smallest fiber diameter showed the highest tensile strength and the most significant strain rate dependency on the strength. These effects were more significant for the specimens with high orientation angle. From SEM observations on the fracture surface and an average fiber length measurement, it was observed that the interfacial fracture and the fiber breakage were dominant failure modes under the considered tensile loading conditions. It was suggested that decreasing the stress acting on the fiber/matrix interface by reducing the fiber diameter affected the improvement of the GF/PA strength. Using the modified linear rule of mixtures, the tensile strength was predicted. The predictions showed good agreement with experimental results. Therefore, it is believed that the decrease of critical fiber length is the reason that the impact tensile properties are higher for the samples with smaller fiber diameter.