An enhanced demand for lightweight materials in automotive applications has resulted in the growth of the use of injection molded discontinuous fiber-reinforced thermoplastics. During the intensive injection molding process, severe fiber breakage arises in the plasticating stage leading to a broad fiber length distribution. Fiber orientation distribution (FOD) is another highly anisotropic feature of the final injection molded parts induced by the mold filling process. The mechanical and other properties can be highly dependent on the fiber length distribution and fiber orientation distribution. The residual fiber length in the final part is of great significance determining the mechanical performances of injection molded discontinuous fiber reinforced thermoplastic composites. One goal of this research is to develop a fiber length characterization method with reproducible sampling procedure in a timely manner is described. In this work is also proposed an automatic fiber length measurement algorithm supported by Matlab®. The accuracy of this automatic algorithm is evaluated by comparing the measured results using this in-house developed tool with the manual measurement and good agreement between the two methods is observed. Accurate predictions of fiber orientation are also important for the improvement of mold design and processing parameters to optimize mechanical performances of fiber-reinforced thermoplastics. In various fiber orientation models, a strain reduction factor is usually applied to match the slower fiber orientation evolution observed experimentally. In this research, a variable strain reduction factor is determined locally by the corresponding local flow-type and used in fiber orientation simulation. The application of the variable strain reduction factor in fiber orientation simulations for both non-lubricated squeeze flow and injection molded center-gated disk, allows the simulated fiber re-orient rate to be dependent on the local flow-type. This empirical variable strain reduction factor might help to improve the fiber orientation predictions especially in complex flow, because it can reflect the different rates at which fibers orient during different flow conditions. Finally, the stiffness of injection-molded long-fiber thermoplastics is investigated by micro-mechanical methods: the Halpin-Tsai (HT) model and the Mori-Tanaka model based on Eshelby's equivalent inclusion (EMT). We proposed an empirical model to evaluate the effective fibers aspect ratio in the computation for the fiber bundles under high fiber content in the as-formed fiber composites. After the correction, the analytical predictions had good agreement with the experimental stiffness values from tensile tests on the composites. Our analysis shows that it is essential to incorporate the effect of the presence of fiber bundles to accurately predict the composite properties. / PHD / An enhanced demand for lightweight materials in automotive applications has resulted in the growth of the use of injection molded discontinuous fiber-reinforced thermoplastics. The injection molding process results in fiber length and fiber orientation distributions in the final parts. The mechanical and other properties can be highly dependent on the fiber length distribution and fiber orientation distribution. This work focuses on the process-structure-property relationship of fiber-thermoplastic composites. A novel fiber length measurement procedure and an automatic fiber length measurement tool were developed to improve the accuracy of fiber length measurement. The existing fiber orientation models have been improved by integration of the flow-type dependent fiber orientation kinetics. To improve the stiffness predictions, an empirical model has been developed to include the effects of fiber clumping on the elastic properties of injection molded fiber composites.

Transient viscosity growth measurements at the startup of shear flow were performed on long glass fiber-filled polypropylene. Samples were prepared with fibers pre-oriented either in 1-direction, 3-direction or random in 1-3 plane, where the 1-direction is the direction of shear motion, the 2-direction is perpendicular to the shear plane and the 3-direction is the neutral direction. A sliding plate rheometer incorporating a shear stress transducer was constructed in the lab. It was shown that this device works well for the tested materials including a Newtonian oil, a low density polyethylene (LDPE) and short glass fiber-filled polypropylene. The transient viscosity growth behavior for long glass fiber suspensions was subsequently investigated. The results suggested that both, fiber length and fiber concentration have pronounced effect on the steady state suspension viscosity. It was also observed that the transient behavior of the pre-oriented samples was highly dependent on the initial orientation state of the fibers. / Master of Science