Residual Fiber Length and Fiber Orientation of Anisotropic Injection Molded Glass Fiber Reinforced Polyamide 66 Composites in Experimental and Numerical Study

This paper aims to investigate glass residual fiber length and fiber orientation of anisotropic injection molded glass fiber reinforced polyamide 66 composites (GF/PA66). A combined experimental and numerical study was carried out to investigate the effects of initial glass fiber length and fiber mass fraction on the finished samples. The model was validated with the experimental value. The glass fibers were oriented during the injection molding, and subsequently the composites exhibited anisotropic properties. Additionally, with the increase of fiber mass fraction, more fibers become oriented in the flow direction (Y direction). Moreover, the samples had a skin-core-skin structure and the residual fiber length in the skin layer was shorter than that in the core layer. Furthermore, with the increase of length-diameter ratio of initial fiber ranging from 50 to 90 and the increase of fiber mass fraction, the damage sustained by glass fiber during manufacturing aggravated and subsequently the loss rate of fiber length increased.