Investigation of the effect of processing temperature on the elastic and viscoelastic properties of PVC/fiberglass composite laminates

In this paper, the effect of processing temperature on the elastic and viscoelastic properties including storage modulus, loss modulus and damping value of PVC/plain weave fiberglass composites laminates was investigated. For this, composite samples with [0/90]10 lay ups were produced in three different temperatures including 160 ᵒC, 200 ᵒC and 230 ᵒC using film stacking procedure. Firstly, the flexural strength and modulus of the samples were measured using three points bending test according to ASTM D790-07 standard. Then, viscoelastic properties of the samples were measured in the temperature range of 25 ᵒC up to 220 ᵒC using Dynamic Mechanical Thermal Analysis (DMTA) and the effect of temperature on the viscoelastic properties was studied. Also, the effect of fiber/ matrix impregnation quality on the thermal and dynamic properties of the samples was evaluated using optical microscope images. It was concluded that the temperature of 230 ᵒC is proper to achieve high quality impregnation, according to both DMTA and three points bending test. Also, it was seen that increase of processing temperature up to 230 ᵒC increases the storage modulus; however, processing temperature doesn’t affect the glass transition temperature of the samples.