Fabrication and Mechanical Properties of PE/PE Knitted Fabric Composites

Combinations of inorganic fibers and organic matrices can produce high performance composites such as CFRP and GFRP. Normally, the adhesion between these two material types is not good due to their Completely different nature. Composites that consist of a matrix reinforced with fibers of the same material however, may have excellent interfacial strength. Often, the melting temperature of thermoplastic fibers is higher than that of the corresponding bulk material due to molecular orientation in the fibers. Therefore, a processing window between the two melting temperatures of the fibers and the bulk materials may enable fabrication of composites with a high strength interface and fiber reinforcement. We call this class of composites “Interface-less Composites”. In this paper, UHMWPE fibers and PE film were selected as the first step in the validation of this concept. Knitted PE fabric with good drapeability was also used as a reinforcement. The effects of processing temperature and time in film stacking method on mechanical properties were investigated. Even at a low fiber volume fraction (12%) PE/PE composites showed two times higher tensile strength than the neat PE matrix. On the other hand, the tensile strength of PE/Epoxy composites was lower than that of Epoxy resin. This concept can be extended to any thermoplastic material. The use of these composites could greatly improve the recycle ability since matrix and reinforcement are the same materials.