In this paper, the melt flow behavior and mechanical properties of PC/LCPs in-situ composites and the effect of a compatibilizer upon
these properties are discussed. LCP domains lubricate the melt of thermoplastics matrix and strengthen the materials due to their
fibrillation in the composite system during the melting processing. In this work, it was found that Hytrel copolyester as a compatibilizer
can reduce the viscosity of PC/Rodrun LC-5000 LCP in-situ composites significantly and the MFI of this binary system can be increased
by up to 500 times. Different PC/LCPs system have different response to the same compatibilizer. There exists an optimum value of 1%
compatibilizer content for the maximum improvement in tensile modulus for PC/Rodrun LC-5000 LCPI Hytrel copolyester ternary
systems.
Introduction
The increasing demand in performance for the aircraft,
automobile, and marine industries has led to intensive research
into high performance fiber composites based on thermoplastic
matrices. Reinforcing filaments traditionally used for these
purposes are inorganic fibers such as graphite, boron, and glass.
However, the presence of rigid fibers in a polymeric matrix
creates many problems, which essentially originate from the
increased viscosity of the composite during processing. The
increased viscosity will lead to an increase in the cost of
processing and potential degradation of the polymeric matrix.
Furthermore, because of the high shear stress inside the injection
barrel, fibers are broken down into fragments that are shorter than
the critical length and result in a small aspect ratio, thus the
effectiveness in load transfer through the fiber matrix interface is
reduced significantly. In addition, composites with inorganic
fibers are generally non-recyclable.
The production of thermoplastic composites with in-situ
generation of liquid crystalline polymers (LCPs) reinforcements