Effect of fibre suspension jet stability on alignment quality of discontinuous carbon fibre tapes

Liu, Zhe; Turner, Thomas; Wong, Kok; Pickering, Stephen

Abstract

A hydrodynamic alignment process has been developed for converting discontinuous random carbon fibres into tapes with a highly aligned orientation distribution to greatly improve the applicability of recovered fibres to composite parts. In hydrodynamic alignment processes short fibres are aligned by the velocity gradient along the flow direction in a convergent nozzle. Thereafter the jet of fibre suspension is deposited on a nylon mesh and the now redundant dispersion medium is drained away to leave an aligned fibre tape. The fundamental physical principles at work in the process have not been widely studied and are shown in the present work to greatly influence the properties of the resulting materials. In this work, the influence of suspension jet stability on the fibre orientation distribution was examined and the liquid jet break-up regime was determined.To explore the factors which can affect the suspension jet stability, different nozzle geometries, viscosities of dispersion media, fibre lengths and Reynolds numbers were applied in experimental work.The shear rate profiles inside different nozzles were simulated by Computational Fluid Dynamics methods and the results described in this paper.

Citation

Liu, Z., Turner, T., Wong, K., & Pickering, S. (2019). Effect of fibre suspension jet stability on alignment quality of discontinuous carbon fibre tapes. International Journal of Multiphase Flow, 120, Article 103102. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijmultiphaseflow.2019.103102

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Aug 28, 2019
• Online Publication Date: Aug 29, 2019
• Publication Date: 2019-11
• Deposit Date: Sep 17, 2019
• Publicly Available Date: Aug 30, 2020
• Journal: International Journal of Multiphase Flow
• Print ISSN: 0301-9322
• Electronic ISSN: 1879-3533
• Publisher: Elsevier
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 120
• Article Number: 103102
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijmultiphaseflow.2019.103102
• Keywords: Mechanical Engineering; General Physics and Astronomy; Fluid Flow and Transfer Processes
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/2547023
• Publisher URL: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301932219301740
• Contract Date: Sep 18, 2019