Conceptions and Feasibility Study of Fiber Orientation in the Melt as Part of a Completely Circular Recycling Concept for Fiber-Reinforced Thermoplastics

Journal of Composites Science, vol. 7, pp. 267

Abstract

Fiber-reinforced thermoplastics are an important construction material for lightweight applications. The increasing use of especially glass fiber-reinforced plastics leads to growing amounts of not recyclable composite materials, which is commonly disposed of by landfilling. Hence, there is a need for a recycling concept for glass-fiber-reinforced plastics that enables their complete reuse over many recycling cycles. In this paper, such a recycling concept is presented, which is based on the idea of melting the whole glass-fiber-reinforced component without prior size reduction. The fiber-reinforced melt will be pressed through a nozzle in order to achieve a strand with highly oriented fibers that can then be applied in new components via a tape-like laying process. The feasibility of the recycling concept is proved in this paper. Therefore, investigations on the reorientation of fibers in the melt by pressing through a rectangular nozzle have been carried out with different nozzle diameters, shear rates and melt temperatures. The investigations result in a stable process, which enables an increase in fiber orientation of about 37% up to a mean fiber orientation of 67% in the flow direction. These findings are independent of the initial fiber orientation.

Authors 3

1. Elmar Moritzer

   Paderborn University

   Affiliation as printed

   Kunststofftechnik Paderborn (KTP), Paderborn University, 33098 Paderborn, Germany

2. Lisa Tölle corresponding

   Paderborn University

   Affiliation as printed

   Kunststofftechnik Paderborn (KTP), Paderborn University, 33098 Paderborn, Germany

3. Christoph Greb Aachen Institut für Textiltechnik

   RWTH Aachen University

   Affiliation as printed

   Institut für Textiltechnik (ITA), RWTH Aachen University, 52074 Aachen, Germany