Glass fibre reinforced polypropylene

Table 3.5 shows some examples of the property effect ratios for mineral filler-reinforced polypropylene. The effect ratio is the performance of the reinforced polymer divided by the performance of the neat polymer. Properties of low-level glass fibre reinforced polypropylene are given for comparison. 

Currently, one of the most important applications is the front-end of recent cars such as the Mini Cooper from BMW, Mazda 6, Audi A6, Ford Focus and VW Polo, associating long glass fibre reinforced polypropylene injected onto stamped metal, which leads to weight savings in the range of 30-35% compared to traditional solutions. 

The Ultratect foam from BASF is used as the core with glass fibre reinforced polypropylene skins for the sandwich rear seat backrest of the M3 CSL sports car by BMW. The weight saving is 50% versus a metal part. 

Borealis has developed a high-performance short glass fibre reinforced polypropylene (HPGF) family that has the technological and economical potential to replace long glass fibre (LFRT) in highly stressed parts for technical automotive applications. 

Tanks (by Covessa) capable of withstanding up to 100 bars made by welding three parts in glass fibre reinforced polypropylene (Twintex). 

Ford Focus is injection moulded from HPP30GR20BK, a glass fibre reinforced polypropylene allowing a zero-maintenance engine air filter. 

Glass fibre reinforced polypropylene processing scraps ... 

HPGF High-Performance short Glass Fibre reinforced polypropylene... 

O Donnell, B. White, J.R. Stress-accelerated photo-oxidation of polypropylene and glass fibre-reinforced polypropylene. Polym. Degrad. Stab. 1994, 44, 211-222. 

Langdon GS, Nurick GN, Lemanski SL, Simmons MC, Cantwell WJ, Schleyer GK. Failure characterisation of blast-loaded fibre-metal laminate panels based on aluminium and glass-fibre reinforced polypropylene. Compos Sci Technol 2007 67(7-8) 1385-405. 

Mader, E. Moos, E. Karger-Kocsis, J. (2001). Role of Film Formers in Glass Fibre Reinforced Polypropylene - New Insights and Relation to Mechanical Properties. Composites Part A Applied Science and Manufacturing, Vol.32, No.5, pp. 631-639 ISSN 1359-835X... 

Nishitani, Y. Sekiguchi, I. Yoshimitsu, Y. Tahira, K. Saha, P. Nagatsuka Y. Kitano, T. (1999). Long Glass Fibre Reinforced Polypropylenes Fabrication and... 

Thomason, J.L. Vlug, MA. (1996). Influence of Fibre Length and Concentration on the Properties of Glass Fibre-reinforced Polypropylene 1. Tensile and Flexural Modulus. Composites Part A Applied Science and Manufacturing, Vol.27, No.6, pp. 477-484 ISSN 1359-835X... 

O90ni Onishi, P., Hashemi, S. Effect of fibre concentration and strain rate on mechanical properties of single-gated and double-gated injection-moulded short glass fibre-reinforced polypropylene copolymer composites. J. Mater. Sci. 44 (2009) 3445-3456. 

In addition, the external cross-sectional shape must be rectangular with width 250 mm and depth up to 40 mm, and the weight should be as low as possible. It is proposed to manufacture the new product as an extruded hollow box section, reinforced if necessary by longitudinal webs (see the box section in Figure 8.16). The chosen material is short glass-fibre reinforced polypropylene (GF-PP) with properties given below. 

JMH Daemen, J den Besten. The Effects of Glass Fibre Size and Coupling Additives on the Properties of Glass Fibre Reinforced Polypropylene. PPG Silenka Glass Fibre Technical Literature. 

E Devaux, B Chabert. Non-isothermal crystallization of glass fibre reinforced polypropylene. Polymer Communications 31 391-394, 1990. 

JL Thomason, MA Vlug. The influence of fibre length and concentration on the properties of glass fibre-reinforced polypropylene. Part 1. Tensile and flexural Modulus. Composites A 27 477-484, 1996. 

Astrdm, B. T. and Carlsson, A., Experimental investigation of pultrusion of glass fibre reinforced polypropylene composites . Composites Part A Applied Science and Manufacturing, 29A, 585-593, 1998. 

It was proved that the long fibres assure to the composites a higher resistance that the short ones, and are characterised by specific fracture properties. The microstructure and fracture mechanical behaviour of injection-moulded longer glass fibres reinforced polypropylene (Verton, aspect ratio 320) were studied as a function of the fibre volume fraction and compared to that of a shorter... 

Table 5.3 Critical fibre length and interfadal shear strength values for glass-fibre reinforced polypropylene compositions determined by a single-fibre fragmentation technique (adapted from [78]) ...

Recent research has included studies of short glass fibre reinforced polypropylene samples made either by conventional injection moulding or shear controlled injection moulding (SCORIM) [17,18], using image analysis to determine fibre orientation. The aggregate model was combined with Wilczynski [1], Tandon and Weng [10] or a finite element... 

It is difficult to agree on a precise definition of a high performance plastic. There is indeed a clear overlap across the entire classification spectrum of thermoplastic materials. Some commodity plastics can be modified through reinforcements to compete with traditional engineering resins. Glass fibre-reinforced polypropylene is a good example of a standard thermoplastic material that is challenging polyamide and ABS in many different fields of application. 

M. Hou and K. Friedrich, Resistance welding of continuous glass fibre-reinforced polypropylene composites. Compos Manuf, 3(3), 153-163, 1992. 

This paper presents an industrial project where finite element analysis was used to prove that was possible producing gas pressure vessels based on a hybrid solution, consisting on a steel liner wrapped with a glass fibre reinforced polypropylene (GF/PP) filament winding... 

The Tsai-Wu failure criterion was used to prediet the failure of the glass fibre reinforced polypropylene plies. As can be seen in Figures 10 and 11, for a internal pressure of 3 MPa the thermoplastic layers are not damaged (R>1). 

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