• Journal of the Korean Wood Science and Technology
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• v.50 no.2
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• pp.93-103
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• 2022

Currently, biofibers are used as a reinforcement in polymer composites for structural elements and construction materials instead of the synthetic fibers which cause environmental problems and are expensive. One of the chemicals with a pH close to neutral that can be potentially used as a modified fiber material is sodium chloride (NaCl). Therefore, this study aims to investigate the characteristics of a composite board made from NaCl-treated kenaf fiber. A completely randomized design method was used with consideration of two factors: the content of NaCl in the treatment solution (1 wt%, 3 wt%, and 5 wt%) and the duration of immersion of fibers in the solution (1 h, 2 h, and 3 h). The NaCl treatment was conducted by soaking the fibers in the solution for different durations. The fibers were then rinsed with water until the pH of the water reached 7 and subsequently dried inside an oven at 80℃ for 6 h. Kenaf fiber and epoxy were mixed manually with the total loading of 20 wt% based on the dry weight of the fiber. Physical and mechanical properties of the fibers were then evaluated based on JIS A 5908 particleboard standards. The results showed that increasing NaCl content in the fiber treatment solution can increase the physical and mechanical properties of the composite board. The properties of fibers treated with 5 wt% NaCl for 3 h were superior with a modulus of elasticity of 2.085 GPa, modulus of rupture of 19.77 MPa, internal bonding of 1.8 MPa, thickness swelling of 3%, and water absorption of 10.9%. The contact angle of untreated kenaf fibers was 104°, which increased to 80° and 73° on treatment with 1 wt% and 5 wt% NaCl for 3 h, respectively.

• Composites Research
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• v.34 no.4
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• pp.241-248
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• 2021

As the electric vehicle market grows, there is an issue of light weight vehicles to increase battery efficiency. Therefore, it is going to replace the battery module cover that protects the battery module of electric vehicles with high strength/high heat-resistant polymer composite material which has lighter weight from existing aluminum materials. It also aims to respond to the early electric vehicle market where technology changes quickly by combining 3D printing technology that is advantageous for small production of multiple varieties without restrictions on complex shapes. Based on the composite material mechanics, the critical length of glass fibers in short glass fiber (GF)/polycarbonate (PC) composite materials manufactured through extruder was derived as 453.87 ㎛, and the side feeding method was adopted to improve the residual fiber length from 365.87 ㎛ and to increase a dispersibility. Thus, the optimal properties of tensile strength 135 MPa and Young's modulus 7.8 MPa were implemented as GF/PC composite materials containing 30 wt% of GF. In addition, the filament extrusion conditions (temperature, extrusion speed) were optimized to meet the commercial filament specification of 1.75 mm thickness and 0.05 mm standard deviation. Through manufactured filaments, 3D printing process conditions (temperature, printing speed) were optimized by multi-optimization that minimize porosity, maximize tensile strength, and printing speed to increase the productivity. Through this procedure, tensile strength and elastic modulus were improved 11%, 56% respectively. Also, by post-processing, tensile strength and Young's modulus were improved 5%, 18% respectively. Lastly, using the FEA (finite element analysis) technique, the structure of the battery module cover was optimized to meet the mechanical shock test criteria of the electric vehicle battery module cover (ISO-12405), and it is satisfied the battery cover mechanical shock test while achieving 37% lighter weight compared to aluminum battery module cover. Based on this research, it is expected that 3D printing technology of polymer composite materials can be used in various fields in the future.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.3 no.1
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• pp.40-49
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• 1986

Crack, craze and void are common defects which may be found in the bulk of polymeric materials such as either themoplastics or thermosets. The healing phenomena, autohesion, of these defects are known to be a intrinsic material property of various polymeric materials. However, only a few experimental and theoretical investigations on crack, void and craze healing phenomena for various polymeric materials have been reported up to date [1, 2, 3]. This may be partly due to the complications of healing processes and lacking of appropriate theoretical developments. Recently, some investigators have been urged to study the healing phenomena of various polymenic materials since the significance of the use of polymer based alloys or composites has been raised in terms of specific strength and energy saving. In the earlier published reports [1, 2, 3, 4], the crack and void healing velocity, healing toughness and some other healing mechanical and physical properties were measured experimentally and compared with predicted values by utilizing a simple model such as the reptation model under some resonable assumptions. It seems, however, that the general acceptance of the proposed modeling analyses is yet open question. The crack healing processes seem to be complicate and highly dependent on the state of virgin material in terms of mechanical and physical properties. Furthermore, it is also strongly dependent on the histories of crack, craze and void development including fracture suface morphology, the shape of void and the degree of disentanglement of fibril in the craze. The rate of crack healing may be a function of environmental factors such as healing temperature, time and pressure which gives different contact configurations between two separated surfaces. It seems to be reasonable to assume that the crack healing processes may be divided in several distinguished steps like stress relaxation with molecular chain arrangement, surface contact (wetting), inter- diffusion process and com;oete healing (to obtain the original strength). In this context, it is likely that we no longer have to accept the limitation of cumulative damage theories and fatigue life if it is probable to remove the defects such as crack, craze and void and to restore the original strength of polymers or polymer based compowites by suitable choice of healing histories and methods. In this paper, we wish to present a very simple and intuitive theoretical model for the prediction of healed fracture toughness of cracked or defective polymeric components. The central idea of this investigation, thus, may be the modeling of behavior of chain molecules under healing conditions including the effects of chain scission on the healing processes. The validity of this proposed model will be studied by making comparisons between theoretically predicted values and experimentally determined results in near future and will be reported elsewhere.

• Composites Research
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• v.31 no.1
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• pp.30-36
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• 2018

The curing behavior of glass fiber reinforced epoxy prepregs based on Bisphenol-A (BPA) was studied by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). The total heat of reaction(${\Delta}H_{total}=280.3J/g$) was determined based on the results of the dynamic heating scanning experiments. Isothermal experiments were carried out at $110{\sim}130^{\circ}C$, and it was observed that the maximum conversion and the maximum reaction rate were increased as temperature increased. Also Kamal equation was applied to analyze autocatalytic reaction of epoxy prepregs. The higher temperatures, the greater reaction rate constants ($k_1$, $k_2$). Theoretical values were calculated by these reaction rate constants and compared with experimental values. And it was confirmed that they were in reasonable agreement. At the beginning of the reaction, the experimental data and theoretical prediction were shown the same tendency, but at the end of reaction, the experimental data were smaller than theoretical predicted values due to reaction rates controlled by diffusion.

• Composites Research
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• v.30 no.6
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• pp.379-383
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• 2017

A study on the low Earth orbit (LEO) space environment have been conducted as a use of composites have increased. Among the LEO environmental factors, atomic oxygen is one of the most critical factors because atomic oxygen can react and erode a surface of polymer-based composite materials. POSS (Polyhedral Oligomeric Silsesquioxane) materials have been widely studied as an atomic oxygen-resistant nanomaterial. In this study, nanocomposites, which are composed of OG (Octaglycidyldimethylsilyl) POSS nanomaterials and DGEBA/DDM epoxy, were fabricated to find out its thermal and mechanical properties. FT-IR results showed that the nanocomposites were fully cured and contained OG POSS enough. Thermogravimetric analysis and differential scanning calorimetry were performed to measure the thermal properties of the nanocomposites. The initial mass loss temperature and char yield were increased through the filling of OG POSS. As the content of OG POSS increased, glass transition temperature tended to increase to 5 wt.% of OG POSS, but the temperature decreased significantly at 10 wt.% of OG POSS. The tensile test results showed that the content of OG POSS did not affect tensile strength and tensile stiffness.

• Journal of the Korea Concrete Institute
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• v.23 no.4
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• pp.405-411
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• 2011

Using combinations of carbon and glass fiber composites normally used for strengthening of concrete structures, the hybrid effect from strengthening concrete structures using the composite is studied. To produce the hybrid effects, the specimens were made with optimum proportions of carbon fibers with glass fibers. Then, direct tensile tests were conducted on the hybrid FRP (fiber reinforced polymer) specimens. Unlike the woven fiber sheet currently used in construction sites, the FRP specimens have to be directly combined with the fibers, which make the work very complicated. Therefore, direct tensile test specimens manufacturing method based on the combination of high-tension carbon fibers and E-type glass fibers was proposed and the effects of hybridization is studied through the direct tensile test. By comparing the ductility index, the modulus of elasticity, and the stress-strain curves of the specimens, the most optimum glass to carbon fiber combination ratio for the hybrid FRP was found to be 9 to 1 with ductile K-type epoxy. The study results are discussed in detail in the paper.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.20 no.9
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• pp.472-477
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• 2010

$Al_2O_3$ has received wide attention with established use as a catalyst and growing application in structural or functional ceramic materials. On the other hand, the boehmite (AlO(OH)) obtained by sol-gel process has exhibited a decrease in surface area during phase transformation due to a decline in surface active site at high temperature. In this work, $Al_2O_3$-CuO/ZnO (ACZ) and $Al_2O_3$-CuO/CeO (ACC) composite materials were synthesized with aluminum isopropoxide, copper (II) nitrate hemi (pentahydrate), and cerium (III) nitrate hexahydrate or zinc (II) nitrate hexahydrate. Moreover, the Span 80 as the template block copolymer was added to the ACZ/ACC composition to make nano size particles and to keep increasing the surface area. The ACZ/ACC synthesized powders were characterized by Thermogravimetry-Differential Thermal analysis (TG/DTA), X-ray Diffractometer (XRD), Field-Emmision Scanning Electron Microscope (FE-SEM), Bruner-Emmett-Teller (BET) surface analysis and thermal electrical conductivity (ZEM-2:M8/L). An enhancement of surface area with the addition to Span 80 surfactant was observed in the ACZ powders from 105 $m^2$/g to 142 $m^2$/g, and the ACC powders from 103 $m^2$/g to 140 $m^2$/g, respectively.

• Elastomers and Composites
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• v.36 no.3
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• pp.188-194
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• 2001

Thermoplastic elastomers based on dynamically vulcanized NR/TOR/PP (rubber/PP=70/30) blends were prepared in a Haake banbury mixer. Effect of TOR content on the mechanical, dynamic mechanical and thermal stability of the rubber/plastic blends was characterized by UTM, DMTA, and TGA. On the addition of trans-polyoctylene rubber(TOR) to the rubber phase, there was a decrease in compression set and increase in tensile properties, hardness and dynamic properties as well as thermal stability or the elastomeric blends. Improvements in the properties were believed to be due to an increase in crosslink density of the rubber phase and increase in homogeneity of the blends.

• Advanced Composite Materials
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.57-73
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• 2008

The present paper focuses on experimental verification of the ply-by-ply basis inelastic analysis of multidirectional laminates. First of all, rate dependence of the tensile behavior of balanced symmetric cross-ply T800H/epoxy laminates with a $[0/90]_{3S}$ lay-up under off-axis loading conditions at $100^{\circ}C$ is examined. Uniaxial tension tests are performed on plain coupon specimens with various fiber orientations $[{\theta}/(90-{\theta})]_{3S}$ ($\theta$ = 0, 5, 15, 45 and $90^{\circ}C$) at two different strain rates (1.0 and 0.01%/min). The off-axis stress.strain curves exhibit marked nonlinearity for all the off-axis fiber orientations except for the on-axis fiber orientations $\theta$ = 0 and $90^{\circ}$, regardless of the strain rates. Strain rate has significant influences not only on the off-axis flow stress in the regime of nonlinear response but also on the apparent off-axis elastic modulus in the regime of initial linear response. A macromechanical constitutive model based on a ply viscoplasticity model and the classical laminated plate theory is applied to predictions of the rate-dependent off-axis nonlinear behavior of the cross-ply CFRP laminate. The material constants involved by the ply viscoplasticity model are identified on the basis of the experimental results on the unidirectional laminate of the same carbon/epoxy system. It is demonstrated that good agreements between the predicted and observed results are obtained by taking account of the fiber rotation induced by deformation as well as the rate dependence of the initial Young's moduli.

• Elastomers and Composites
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• v.44 no.3
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• pp.209-221
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• 2009

Polyolefins are important commodity polymers with the largest volume of business owing to their outstanding combination of cost performance and excellent physical properties. However, the lack of functional groups often has limited their end uses, such as compatibilizer, modifier and adhesive, where the interaction with other materials is especially important. The incorporation of functional groups as polymer segments to afford block or graft polyolefin copolymers has been extensively investigated in the context of the functional polyolefin hybrids. Living polymerization processes have been considered to be an efficient method to prepare the polyolefin hybrids with precisely controlled architecture and compositions. Among the living polymerization techniques, controlled/"living" radical polymerization (CRP) methods are very effective not only because of the controllability of polymerization but also because of the versatility of monomers and polymerization conditions. In this review paper, progresses on the preparations of polyolefin graft or block copolymers through CRP techniques are summarized. The commodity polymers such as polyisobutylene, polyethylene and polypropylene are combined with polar segments such as polyacrylate, polymethacrylate, polystyrene to yield functionalized polyolefins.