Nonisothermal Crystallization Kinetics and Its Effect on the Mechanical Properties Mechanical of Carbon Fiber/Polyphenylene Sulfide Composites

Abstract

The degree of crystallization of semi-crystalline thermoplastics is an important factor in determining the final properties of the structure of composite materials. This article studied the non-isothermal crystallization kinetics of carbon fiber (CF) reinforced polyphenylene sulfide (PPS) composites by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) with various cooling rates from 10 k/min to 70 k/min. The MoZhiShen method was applied to the analysis of the nonisothermal crystallization of the composites. Moreover, the effects of the crystallization behavior of CF/PPS composites on their mechanical properties were also investigated. It was found that the MoZhiShen method can effectively be applied to study the nonisothermal crystallization kinetics of CF/PPS composites. The result indicated that the crystallization peak gradually became strengthened in intensity, and crystallization decreased with increasing the cooling rate. Moreover, the increase in the cooling rate during composite fabrication was found to decrease the flexural properties of the composite, but the energy absorption and the impact strength were significantly increased by 15.1%.