Fabrication of Composites and Nanocomposites Based on Polymer by Friction Stir Process: A Review

Due to the low weight and chemical resistance of polymers, compared to metals,the use of these materials in various industries has increased. On the other hand,due to the low strength in polymers, their reinforcement with micron/nanoparticles isnecessary. In recent years, one of the advances in plastics and composite industries hasbeen the development and commodification of polymer-based nanocomposites. The use ofpolymer blend nanocomposites based on thermoplastic polyolefin have been developed inengineering application such as automotive, airplane, household appliances and medicalapparatus. There are different processes such as extruder and internal mixer to fabricatenanocomposites. The limitation of these processes is the high cost, the multi-stage processfor sheet production and the amount of nano-sized reinforcement particles (at most 5 wt%).Recently, investigations have been done on friction stir processing for the fabrication ofcomposites and nanocomposites. To produce polymer composites and nanocomposites withfriction stir process, a groove with defined dimensions is machined in the base polymersheet and nanoparticles are improvised into this groove. Subsequently, a rotating tool isplunged into the sheet and traversed along the groove to disperse particles to the basematerial.