STUDY OF MIXTURES OF DIFFERENT FIBERS IN SHEET MOLDING COMPOUND (SMC)

Mauricio Cabrera Ros1, Jos M. Castro2, and L.James Lee3 Graduate Program in Systems Engineering Universidad Autnoma de Nuevo Len Sn. Nicols de los Garza, Nuevo Len, Mxico 66450 Abstract
The automotive industry requires parts with high strength and low weight, and if the application requires it, surface quality. These requirements have led to investigate the use of carbon fibers as a reinforcement alternative to the widely used glass fibers. Our previous studies compared the performance of glass and carbon fibers in unsaturated polyester based sheet molding compounds (SMC) for non-structural applications. These showed that there are compromises between the performance of physical properties, cost (incurred by adding the more expensive carbon fibers), and consistency (i.e. variability). In this work, we investigated the effect on physical properties of SMC structural parts when there is a mixture of carbon and glass fibers. Special considerations in the analysis and the implementation of these experiments are discussed. The results of the studies cited above suggest that carbon fibers greatly improve the stiffness of the SMC at the sacrifice of strength and surface quality. They also conclude that carbon fibers also required larger fill times for a given molding force as compared to glass fibers. It is clear from these results that there is a compromise between several desired results: mechanical properties, surface quality, cycle time, molding force, consistency, recyclability and certainly, cost. The objective of this work is to compare the effect on physical properties and molding force of glass and carbon fibers in structural SMC parts (as opposed to appearance parts). One of the important aspects to determine is whether a mixture of these types of fibers will yield better properties than a simple average of the properties of an SMC reinforced only with glass fibers and an SMC reinforced only with carbon fibers. If a mixture does yield better properties than a simple average, then there is a good chance of finding a locally optimal blend that will allow us to reduce cost by adding glass fibers and to increase material properties by adding carbon fibers. Furthermore, we want to investigate if the way the fibers are mixed has any effect on material properties. After proper characterization of effects, the intention is to find out the combinations of different fiber types that yield the best possible compromises between affordability, manufacturability, and consistency. This can be achieved through the methodology previously employed by Cabrera Rios et al [3,4] based on empirical modeling and Data Envelopment Analysis.
1 2

Dept. of Industrial, Welding & Systems Engineering 3 Dept. of Chemical Engineering The Ohio State University Columbus, Ohio, USA 43202

Background
One of the fastest growing applications of SMC compression molding is the manufacture of truck body panels. The trucking industry requires parts with high strength and stiffness, and to a lesser degree, surface quality. These requirements have led to investigate the use of carbon fibers as reinforcement alternative to the widely used glass fibers. Recent studies [1,2] have been aimed to compare the performance of both glass and carbon fibers in appearance SMC. In particular, the effects of different fiber lengths of both types of fibers on mechanical properties, molding forces, and surface quality. An additional consideration in fiber-reinforced composites is the amount of variability reported in their fabrication [1,2]. This aspect makes consistency a central issue. The impossibility of controlling all of the variables that may affect a particular performance measure creates variability from known and unknown sources. An example of the former is the effect of fiber orientation on the mechanical properties. On the other hand, the variation that results from the failure of a molder to place an SMC charge consistently in the same place in the mold cavity is in general considered random (produced by unknown sources), although it could be improved by a closer control of the charge placement.

Experimental and Analysis Implications of Mixing Glass and Carbon Fibers

Two aspects are particularly important in an experiment that includes mixtures of different fiber types: (1) how are the fibers going to be mixed? And (2) how is this experiment going to be analyzed? Our approach to the first issue was to choose one of two possible methods that included either mixing the fibers at the point where the SMC was being compounded or preparing SMCs with glass fibers or carbon fibers, and then combining them in a
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sandwich-like fashion to create a charge. The decision in this preliminary project was to follow the later method for practicality; however, in the future both techniques will be compared for completeness. Figure 1 shows the differences between both techniques. The second issue has to do with arriving to statistically valid conclusions about the experiment. In terms of choosing an experimental design, one might be tempted to attempt the use of a factorial design or some similar design. This is, however, not appropriate for a mixture experiment. The reason is that the variables to be investigated, namely the proportion of glass fibers and the proportion of carbon fibers in this experiment are not independent since choosing an amount for a particular fiber type necessarily implies fixing the amount of the other fiber type for a given total weight fraction of reinforcement in the SMC i.e. weight fraction of Carbon fibers = (Total weight fraction of reinforcement weight fraction of Glass fibers). It is critical to keep the total weight fraction of reinforcement constant regardless of the reinforcement type throughout the experiment because it is well known that its variation has an effect on physical properties, cycle time, and cost of the SMC. If this effect is present in the experiment, it will be confounded with the effects of the variation of the components of the mixture, leading to invalid conclusions. The right approach in this case is to use a design of experiments for mixtures where only the variation of the components and not of the total weight fraction of the reinforcement is to be investigated. A design of experiments for mixtures allows determining the effects of the variation of the components on the chosen performance measures i.e. physical properties, as well as eliciting an empirical mathematical model to make predictions at untried blends. Between the two issues discussed above, a third issue emerges: because we chose to mix the fibers using a ply by ply method, does the position of the different plies in the charge has an effect in the performance measures of interest? We decided to sequence our experiments as to answer this question first with statistical basis, to then answer the question if the different carbon-glass fibers mixtures were truly having an effect on the performance measures of interest, and finally, to elicit a model that would describe the variation across our mixtures. The analyses that we describe in the following sections include only ultimate tensile strength and modulus of elasticity. An analysis comprehending a larger set of performance measures will be reported in the future.

423 kelvins (150 degC). Both SMCs included vinyl ester resins (dissimilar in formulation), but one of the SMCs contained a weight fraction of about 0.50 of carbon fibers chopped to 1 in, and the other one about 0.50 of glass fibers chopped to a similar length. The SMC charge was prepared by stacking four plies of 0.1778 x 0.1778 m (7x7 in) as described in Figure 1. The charge was placed in the center of the mold to favor a random orientation of the fibers in the final part. The first experiment, aimed to determine if the position of the plies with different fiber types had an effect on the physical properties, involved stacking up a charge of four plies, two of which contained carbon fibers, and the other two glass fibers. Three different positions were tried for the plies with carbon fibers as shown in Figure 2 a, b, and c. The weight fractions corresponding to this combination can be seen on Table 1 (2 plies with carbon fibers and 2 plies with glass fibers). Three plaques (replicates) were obtained for each position, and three specimens for tensile testing were cut from each plaque (nine specimens per position). The stress-strain behavior of the large majority of the specimens showed only an elastic region with little to none plastic deformation, evidencing a high level of brittleness. Additionally, by examining the cross-section of the specimens, it can be seen that the material particles belonging to the different plies showed nearly straight path lines, a fact that might prove useful in the future for mixing SMCs with different characteristics e.g. strength and appearance. The results for ultimate tensile strength (divided by the weight of the specimen) and modulus of elasticity are shown in Figure 3 and 4. In order to conclude from these data, Analyses of Variance (ANOVAs) were conducted using the position as treatment and a significance level of 5%, i.e. an alpha value of 0.05. These analyses, after proper verification of residuals, led to the following conclusions: (1) the position of the plies with different types of fibers did have a statistically significant effect on tensile strength at the specified level (=0.05); however, (2) there was no significant effect detected on modulus of elasticity. Furthermore, a multiple comparison analysis with the combination with the largest values [5] under the same significance level allowed concluding that the highest ultimate tensile strength in this experiment was obtained when the plies with carbon fibers were placed together in the middle of the charge (Figure 3), while the other combinations gave statistically similar results. It is worth mentioning that these conclusions hold even after eliminating outlier points i.e. the conclusions are robust. The second experiment was aimed to determine if the variation of the fiber mixture had a significant effect on the selected physical properties. It consisted in creating five mixtures: (i) four plies of SMC with glass fibers; (ii) three plies of SMC with glass fibers, and one ply with carbon fibers; (iii) two plies of SMC with glass fibers, and two

Description of the Experiments

The application of interest in this case is that of structural SMC parts, for which we chose a total weight fraction of reinforcement of 0.50. Mixtures of two SMCs were used to produce SMC plaques of 0.3048 x 0.3048 m (12x12 in) to a thickness of about 0.003175 m (0.125 in) using a molding force of 75 tnf and a molding temperature of
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plies with carbon fibers; (iv) three plies of SMC with glass fibers and one with carbon fibers, and (v) four plies of SMC with carbon fibers. For mixture (iii), the mixture with the best results from the first experiment was used. The stacking schemes for the charges are shown in Figure 2 i through v, and the weight fractions per combination are shown in Table 1. Again three plaques were molded per mixture and three specimens per plaque. The results for ultimate tensile strength (divided by the weight of the specimen) and modulus of elasticity are shown in Figure 5 and 6. Using ANOVAs with the mixture as the treatment, and with significance levels and residual verification as in the previous experiment, the following (robust) conclusions were obtained: (1) there is a statistically significant effect of the variation of the mixture on the ultimate tensile strength; and (2) this variation also has a significant effect on the modulus of elasticity. Using multiple comparisons in a fashion similar to the previous experiment, it was also possible to conclude that: (1) the largest values of tensile strength was obtained when only carbon fibers were used as reinforcement; (2) the combination with two plies with glass fibers and two plies of carbon fibers gave statistically better results than the SMC reinforced only with glass fibers; and (3) no statistical difference was detected between those combinations containing either three, two, or one plies with fiber glass (with the rest of the plies with carbon fibers). In terms of the modulus of elasticity, the following (robust) conclusions held: (1) the largest values were obtained when four plies with only carbon fibers were used; and (2) no statistical difference was found between the rest of the combinations. In addition, it was found that the standard deviation also increased with the proportion of carbon fibers, which will have important implications for consistency. This matter will be further explored in future experiments. The final experiment used the same measurements obtained in the second experiment, except that instead of using the mixture as treatment, the values for ultimate tensile strength and modulus of elasticity were correlated through a mixture regression model to the variation of the mixture components. Besides looking for prediction models for the physical properties, it was desired to see if there was a departure from a linear model i.e. curvature, that would reveal opportunities for future compromises through the location of local optima. Figures 7 and 8 show the shapes of the fitted models. It can be seen that for ultimate tensile strength (divided by the specimens weight), there is a clear departure from linearity with the variation of the mixture components. However, no departure from linearity is evident on the modulus of elasticity. The equation for ultimate tensile strength, upon satisfactory residual analysis, is given as

TS = 13.54 x1 + 26.63x2 + 6.21x1 x2 SW + 112.03x1 x2 ( x1 x2 ) 443.14 x1 x 2 ( x1 x2 )

2

(1)

where TS is the ultimate tensile strength and SW is the specimen weight; x1 and x2 express the weight fraction of glass fibers and carbon fibers in the range from 0 to 0.50. The value of x2 depends on x1 in this experiment as follows:
x 2 = 0.50 x1

(2)

The equation for modulus of elasticity (E) is given by

E = 22.15 x1 + 49.95 x 2

(3)

Equations 1 and 3 result in R2 values of 58.47% and 45.37% respectively. This is deemed acceptable since the existence of replications on each experimental condition (mixture) does not allow a 100% accurate approximation. Furthermore, using the means of the nine specimens per mixture, an R2 value of 58.47% is obtained for ultimate tensile strength and of 47.35% for modulus of elasticity. These values are the benchmarks for our approximations [6].

Conclusions and Future Work

The results of a preliminary study of the effect of mixtures of different fiber types on different performance measures were reported. The experiments included mixtures of carbon and glass fibers and measurements of ultimate tensile strength and modulus of elasticity. It was found that when creating a charge by mixing plies each coming from SMCs with only one type of fibers (carbon or glass), the position of the plies with dissimilar reinforcement has an effect on ultimate tensile strength. It was also verified that variation of the mixture had an effect on both tensile strength and modulus of elasticity. The SMC containing only carbon fibers gave the best values in both performance measures, but it also showed larger variability. The regression models obtained for prediction purposes showed a significant departure from linearity of the ultimate tensile strength as a function of the respective weight fractions of the different fibers, which encourages further characterization of different levels of mixture. These preliminary results provide additional evidence on the existence of compromises in key performance measures such as mechanical properties, manufacturability, and consistency. Future work will include detailed characterization of these measures as functions of blends of different reinforcements and the determination of the best compromises between them.
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Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank Honda of America for their financial support. We acknowledge the valuable help and guidance provided by Mr. Dennis Chung from Honda and Mr. Bud Leach from Ashland Chemical to complete this work, as well as the experimental support of Mr. Michael Rabinovich.

6.

Box G.E.P. and Draper N.R., Empirical Model-Building and Response Surfaces, Wiley, New York (1987)

Key Words
Sheet Molding Compound, SMC reinforcement, Mixture Experiments, Structural Composites

References/ Bibliography
Boylan, S. and Castro J. M., Accepted for publication on the Journal of Applied Polymer Science (2003) 2. Cabrera-Ros M. and Castro J.M., Reliability and Robust Design in Automotive Engineering, 2003 SAE World Congress Book, SP-1736 (2003) 3. Cabrera-Ros M., Castro J.M., and Mount-Campbell C.A., Journal of Polymer Engineering, 22:5 (2002) 4. Cabrera-Ros M., Castro J.M., and Mount-Campbell C.A., Accepted for publication on Journal of Polymer Engineering (2003) 5. Hsu J.C., Multiple Comparisons: Theory and Methods, Chapman and Hall, London (1996) 1.

Table 1: Weight Fractions For Glass And Carbon Fibers For The Combinations Used In All Experiments.

Figure 1: Two ways to mix carbon and glass fibers in SMC Figure 2: Stacking patterns for the SMC charges used in all experiments

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Figure 3: Boxplots of the values for ultimate tensile strength / specimen weight for Experiment 1 (the dots in the boxes represent the median).

Figure 6: Boxplots of the values for modulus of elasticity for Experiment 2 (the dots in the boxes represent the median).

Figure 4: Boxplots of the values for modulus of elasticity for Experiment 1 (the dots in the boxes represent the median).

Figure 7: Model fitting for tensile strength / specimen weight as a function of the weight fractions of carbon and glass fibers.

Figure 5: Boxplots of the values for ultimate tensile strength / specimen weight for Experiment 2 (the dots in the boxes represent the median).

Figure 8: Model fitting for modulus of elasticity as a function of the weight fractions of carbon and glass fibers.

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