This work is concerned with preliminary studies on developing thermoplastic composite materials suitable for use in fused deposition modeling (FDM). Polypropylene (PP) strands reinforced with continuous thermotropic liquid crystalline polymer (TLCP) fibrils were generated in a novel dual extruder process. Strands were then re-extruded to form short fiber composite monofilaments that were used as feed stock in the FDM 1600 rapid prototyping system. Prototypes containing 40 wt% Vectra A were shown to have tensile properties twice those of parts built using acrylonitrile butadiene styrene copolymer (ABS), a commercially available material used in the FDM 1600 rapid prototyping system. It was also shown that the final mechanical properties of a composite prototype can be tailored to a specific application by adjusting the lay-down pattern, increasing the functionality of the prototype. In order to obtain the maximum tensile properties in these composite prototype, additional studies were performed to determine the effects of thermal and deformation histories on the mechanical properties of monofilaments that were re-extruded from long fiber TLCP reinforced strands. Strands were consolidated uniaxially at temperatures just above the melting point of the matrix in order to determine the effects of thermal history, and an approximate 20% reduction in tensile modulus relative to the modulus of the strands was observed. Monofilaments that could be used as feed stock in FDM were extruded from long fiber TLCP reinforced strands using a capillary rheometer in order to study the effects of capillary diameter, capillary L/D, and apparent shear rate on the tensile properties. / Master of Science

Thermotropic liquid crystalline polymers (TLCPs) possess a number of physical and mechanical properties such as: excellent chemical resistance, low permeability, low coefficient of thermal expansion, high tensile strength and modulus, and good impact resistance, which make them desirable for use in the storage of cryogenic fluids. Rotational molding was selected as the processing method for these containers because it is convenient for manufacturing large storage vessels from thermoplastics. Unfortunately, there are no reports of successful TLCP rotational molding in the technical literature. The only related work reported involved the static coalescence of two TLCP powders, where three key results were reported that were expected to present problems that preclude the rotational molding process. The first result was that conventional grinding methods produced powders that were composed of high aspect ratio particles. Secondly, coalescence was observed to be either slow or incomplete and speculated that the observed difficulties with coalescence may be due to large values of the shear viscosity at low deformation rates. Finally, complete densification was not observed for the high aspect ratio particles. However, the nature of these problems were not evaluated to determine if they did, in fact, create processing difficulties for rotational molding or if it was possible to develop solutions to the problems to achieve successful rotational molding. This work is concerned with developing a resin selection method to identify viable TLCP candidates and establish processing conditions for successful rotational molding. This was accomplished by individually investigating each of the phenomenological steps of rotational molding to determine the requirements for acceptable performance in, or successful completion of, each step. The fundamental steps were: the characteristics and behavior of the powder in solids flow, the coalescence behavior of isolated particles, and the coalescence behavior of the bulk powder. The conditions identified in each step were then evaluated in a single-axis, laboratory scale, rotational molding unit. Finally, the rotationally molded product was evaluated by measuring several physical and mechanical properties to establish the effectiveness of the selection method. In addition to the development and verification of the proposed TLCP selection method, several significant results that pertain to the storage of cryogenic fluids were identified as the result of this work. The first, and argueably the most significant, was that the selection method led to the successful extension of the rotational molding process to include TLCPs. Also, the established mechanical properties were found to be similar to rotationally molded flexible chain polymers. The biaxial rotationally molded container was capable of performing to the specified requirements for cryogenic storage: withstand pressures up to 34 psi at both cryogenic and room temperatures, retain nitrogen as a gas and as a cryogenic liquid, the mechanical preform retaining nitrogen, as both a gas and as a cryogenic liquid, and resist the development of micro-cracks during thermal cycling to cryogenic conditions. / Ph. D.