ABSTRACT

The present work investigated the effect of fibre's presence on the densification of rotomoulding-grade polyethylene. Nevertheless, the presence of fibres during densification directly impacts the current understanding of how densification works during heating. The present work focuses fibre-reinforced polymer densification to study the effect of fibre addition on bubble formation during this process. A densification test was developed to observe and measure fibre addition's effect on polymer densification and bubble disappearance. The test focused on measuring the cross-section area corresponding to bubbles appearing in the melt and comparing results to clarify whether fibre addition alters this process. Results showed that, although heating parameters and particle size affect bubble morphology and disappearance, fibres’ presence does not substantially affect the bubbles. Finally, results showed that polymer-fibre characterisation plays a crucial role in sintering and densification, and work is continuing to present conclusions about how sintering and densification affect the full-scale manufacturing process.

摘要

目前的工作研究了纤维的存在对滚塑级聚乙烯致密化的影响。然而，在致密化过程中纤维的存在直接影响了目前对加热过程中致密化如何工作的理解。目前的工作侧重于纤维增强聚合物的致密化，以研究在此过程中添加纤维对气泡形成的影响。开发了一种致密化测试来观察和测量纤维添加对聚合物致密化和气泡消失的影响。该测试的重点是测量与熔体中出现的气泡相对应的横截面积，并比较结果以阐明添加纤维是否会改变这一过程。结果表明，虽然加热参数和粒径会影响气泡的形态和消失，纤维的存在基本上不会影响气泡。最后，结果表明聚合物纤维表征在烧结和致密化中起着至关重要的作用，并且正在继续研究关于烧结和致密化如何影响全面制造过程的结论。