Over the last decade, a lot of material and process developments using thermoplastic composites such as LFT, D-LFT and GMT were implemented into automotive applications. Most of them were suitable for high volume semi-structural parts. Small to mid-size volume production cannot economically be realized with these processes due to the high tooling and equipment costs. Anionic Polyamide-6 (APA-6) offers an alternative that allows economic production of structural parts as well as to fulfill the European regulations for recycling. It will be demonstrated that the properties of reactively processed APA-6 are superior to its melt processed counterparts. The reactive processing (vacuum infusion, RTM) of glass fabric reinforced APA-6 is being developed to increase product size/thickness and level of integration of thermoplastic composite parts. The process uses a monomer melt with a water-like viscosity to impregnate a dry fiber pre-form. A catalyst system initiates polymerization at temperatures in the range of 150-180 deg C, which is well below the melting and crystallization point of the final polyamide-6 (PA-6) polymer. As a consequence, solid highly crystalline PA-6 is formed. The simultaneous occurrence of polymerization and crystallization leads to a stiffness far greater than injection molded PA-6 and a strength that even exceeds the strength of PA-6 nano-composites. This in combination with the fact that reactive processing offers the possibility of tailoring the fiber-to-matrix interface clearly shows the potential for this high-performance material. This paper will highlight the potential of this material and process for high-performance structural automotive parts.


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    Title :

    Reactively processed Polyamide-6 structural composites for automotive applications


    Additional title:

    Reaktiv verarbeitete Polyamid-6 Strukturverbundwerkstoffe für Fahrzeugeinsatzmöglichkeiten




    Publication date :

    2006


    Size :

    8 Seiten, 9 Bilder, 3 Tabellen, 11 Quellen


    Type of media :

    Conference paper


    Type of material :

    Print


    Language :

    English




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