Pultruding of Metal Powder Filled Glass Fiber Reinforced Polymer Composites

The present article focuses on manufacturing of metal powder filled pultrusion profiles for electro-technical applications. Herein a set of test material has been reviewed, which was prepared with the aim to present an optimized composite structure with high metal powder content for magnetic slot wedge production, outperforming the products currently available by alternative technology – compression moulding.This article gives a short overview of incorporating fine metal powders as fillers into pultrusion process (including the technical challenges) and the experimental work done in the project. The selection and analysis of components have been briefly discussed along with the results of material tests conducted on prepared composite samples. Mechanical, dielectric and magnetic properties of the samples were studied at different filler loadings and compared to the properties of iron powder filled compressed laminates.Several application specific material properties were determined, including flexural strength according to ISO 178, volume and surface resistivity similarly to IEC 93, and relative permeability using vibrating sample magnetometer (VSM). Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) and various image processing software were used to analyse the composition and microstructure of the material samples. Material test results are presented at different iron powder loadings from 20 to 55 wt% and recommendations given for optimal materials selection.