Development of recyclable, lightweight polypropylene-based single polymer composites with amorphous poly-alpha-olefin matrices

A review of the fabrication methods and mechanical behavior of continuous thermoplastic polymer fiber–thermoplastic polymer matrix composites

“…For instance, B ar any et al [282] reported the typical failure behavior of self-reinforced woven PP composites after instrumented falling weight impact (IFWI) testing by showing a localized region with splitting cracks, delamination, and the breakage of fibers. A significant plastic deformation and fracture of the matrix and fabrics were also observed in the studies of impact behavior of PP-based thermoplastic woven composites by Alcock et al [320] and Varga et al [321] Similar failure modes were also shown for self-reinforced woven PP (Karger-Kocsis et al [304] and Izer et al [303] ) and PET (Santos et al [30] ) composites after IFWI testing. In most cases, impact failure of thermoplastic PPCs typically exhibits less delamination damage, thus may indicating better inter-laminar resistance since delamination is one of the key damage mechanisms for conventional polymer composites subject to impact loading.…”

“…[205] In contrast, the improvement on the peel strength (i.e., interlaminar behavior) of self-reinforced PE-or PP-based woven composites without further reduction by increasing the processing temperature towards melting the reinforcing fibers in the film stacking method was reported by Lee et al, [26] B ar any et al, [37] and Hine et al [278] due to the better interdiffusion and entanglements of fiber/matrix molecules at the interface. However, increasing the consolidation temperature in the film stacking method can adversely lead to the noticeable reduction of the absorbed impact energy for the penetration of uni-/multi-directional selfreinforced PP composites as reported by B ar any et al, [37,187] Izer et al, [303] and Varga et al [321] The lower impact behavior of the composites fabricated by using higher processing temperature was explained due to the reduced delamination of better consolidated composites as observed from their failure morphologies after impact loading. [37,303] Regarding the effects of processing temperature on the fabrication of thermoplastic PPCs via hot compaction method, Xu et al [152] and Rein et al [151] showed that the flexural behavior of self-reinforced UHMWPE composites with either UD fibers or woven fabrics increased first and then decreased significantly as the compaction temperature increased towards melting the UHMWPE fibers.…”

“…Out-of-plane impact behavior of woven or cross-ply thermoplastic PPCs Fiber-matrix Fiber volume fraction ρ (g/cm 3 ) e p /ρ (J/mm/g/cm 3 ) References PP-PP 0.5-0.52 0.9 17.8-38.9 Abraham et al, [281] B ar any et al, [282] Izer et al, [303] Karger-Kocsis et al [304] PP-PP 0.4-0.89 0.6-0.91 25.2-74.7 Cabrera et al, [49] Alcock et al [320] PP-APAO 0.73-0.9 0.7-0.75 20.3-60 Varga et al [321] PLA-PLA 0.5 1.25 12 Gall et al [144] conventional polymer composites under the same loading condition. For instance, cross-ply CFRPs under flexure are mainly characterized by the significant splitting cracks and the consequent delamination triggered by the constrain of the splitting crack propagation meeting the boundary between two laminae.…”

Melt-blown fiber mat interleaving enhances the performance of single-polypropylene composites

“…This phenomenon is associated with the high fraction of the highly oriented fibers when the compression molding temperature was low. 30,31 It is also related to the relaxation of the oriented amorphous tie molecules with increasing temperature, resulting in a slight decrement of the laminate tensile strength. F/MB/W SPCs tensile strength slightly improved (∼7%) with increasing the temperature.…”

Dissolution window in in situ polymerization preparation of polyamide single‐polymer composites

“…It should be noted that a wide‐temperature window can also be realized by selecting a suitable matrix–reinforcement combination for two‐component SPCs (i.e., the matrix and reinforcement are not the same but belong to the same polymer family). In particular, in the pioneering work of Varga et al, [ 23 ] a temperature window of over 50°C was reached by using the matrix–reinforcement pair of poly‐alpha‐olefins and polypropylene. However, the temperature window is still a substantial problem for most material combinations, especially for the one‐component SPCs.…”