Abstract
Carbon fiber (CF)-embedded acrylonitrile butadiene styrene polymer composites printed on the large-scale printer at Oak Ridge National Laboratory were investigated by small-angle neutron scattering to correlate the microstructure of the composites with their mechanical strength. The microstructure of the polymer domains and the alignment of CF were characterized across the interfaces between layers of the hot-melt extruded material and were compared with CF-free ABS. The small-angle neutron scattering data show that the CF-containing material displays strong anisotropic scatterings suggesting molecular alignment along the printing direction that is not present in the CF-free ABS. Scattering data analysis across the interfacial layer revealed enhanced molecular alignment along the printing direction near the boundaries and inhomogeneous size distribution of polymer domains upon the addition of CF. We attribute the compromised strength across interfacial layers from CF-containing material to this inhomogeneous size distribution which prevents effective lateral interaction between layers. POLYM. ENG. SCI., 59:E65–E70, 2019.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | E65-E70 |
| Journal | Polymer Engineering and Science |
| Volume | 59 |
| Issue number | s2 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Mar 2019 |
Funding
The Research was sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, Advanced Manufacturing Office, under contract DE-AC05-00OR22725 with UT-Battelle, LLC. The Research at Oak Ridge National Laboratory's SNS was sponsored by the Scientific User Facilities Division, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, U.S. Department of Energy. Research presented in this work was also supported by the Laboratory Directed Research and Development Program (LDRD-7641) of Oak Ridge National Laboratory, managed by UT-Battelle, LLC, for the U. S. Department of Energy. Notice: This article has been authored by UT-Battelle, LLC under Contract No. DE-AC05-00OR22725 with the U.S. Department of Energy. The Research was sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, Advanced Manufacturing Office, under contract DE-AC05-00OR22725 with UT-Battelle, LLC. The Research at Oak Ridge National Laboratory\u2019s SNS was sponsored by the Scientific User Facilities Division, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, U.S. Department of Energy. Research presented in this work was also supported by the Laboratory Directed Research and Development Program (LDRD-7641) of Oak Ridge National Laboratory, managed by UT-Battelle, LLC, for the U. S. Department of Energy. Notice: This article has been authored by UT-Battelle, LLC under Contract No. DE-AC05-00OR22725 with the U.S. Department of Energy. The United States Government retains and the publisher, by accepting the article for publication, acknowledges that the United States Government retains a nonexclusive, paid-up, irrevocable, world-wide license to publish or reproduce the published form of this article, or allow others to do so, for United States Government purposes. The Department of Energy will provide public access to these results of federally sponsored research in accordance with the DOE Public Access Plan (http://energy.gov/downloads/doe-public-access-plan). The authors thank Dr Wim Bras for scientific advices.