Manufacture Technique and Mechanical Properties of Kevlar/PET
Composite Fabrics
Jia-Horng Lin
1, 2, 3, b, Mei-Chen Lin
1, An-Pang Chen
1and Ching-Wen Lou
4, a 1Laboratory of Fiber Application and Manufacturing, Department of Fiber and Composite Materials,Feng Chia University, Taichung City 40724, Taiwan, R.O.C.
2School of Chinese Medicine, China Medical University, Taichung 40402, Taiwan, R.O.C. 3Department of Fashion Design, Asia University, Taichung 41354, Taiwan, R.O.C.
4Institute of Biomedical Engineering and Materials Science, Central Taiwan University of Science
and Technology, Taichung 40601, Taiwan, R.O.C.
a[email protected], b[email protected]
Keywords: recycled aramid fiber, stab resistance, composite nonwoven fabrics, thermal-treated.
Abstract. With the advancement of industry, the utilization of cushion package to apply on the
products of civilian, sports, electric, precise equipment increases extensively, which are brittle and vulnerable that need to be protected. In the research, the Recycled High Strength PET fiber, Recycled Kevlar fiber and low melting PET fiber are selected as materials, which the content of Recycled Kevlar fiber is stationary. The composite nonwoven fabric was manufactured by non-woven processing and subsequently estimated its stab-resistant strength and air permeability. The composite nonwoven fabric was being heat treatment which can make low melting point PET fiber bonding with other fibers in order to enhance the mechanical property of composite nonwoven fabric.
Introduction
Cushion package is important for products to maintain its quantity with full integrity. The cushion package material not only prevent products from damage, consider the cost and structure of product but also need to choose appropriate material for products.
Kevlar fiber is composed of terephthaloyl chloride or Terephthalic acid (TPA) and Phenylenediamine, which the monomers react with condensation polymerization at low temperature. Kevlar has advantages such as high strength, high modulus, excellent impact-resistance and light weight. In contrast, the tensile strength of the Kevlar system is fivefold and tenfold higher than that of the steel and aluminum system with same mass. High count Kevlar fiber and its fabrics are laminated to be used applied on the stab-resistant domain. But Kevlar is not widely used because of its high cost. With coating thermoplastic and coping with shear-resistant fluid, it comes to excellent stab-resistant ability [1-2]. There were many researches focused on the high modulus fiber to improve the ability of composite nonwoven fabrics [3-7].
In the research, high strength PET fiber, Kevlar fiber and low melting PET fiber are selected as materials to manufacture composite nonwoven fabrics. The influence of High strength PET fiber to
the mechanical property of composite fabric and the property of Low melting point PET fiber after heat treatment are discussed. The optimum parameter is obtained to make composite fabric have high strength and stab-resistant ability.
Experimental
Materials and Processing
Recycled high strength PET fiber (Length ： 66 mm. Denier: 1000D. Filament: 192). Low melting PET fiber (Specification: 4D×51 mm. Melting point: 110℃) was provided by Huvis Chemical Fiber Co., South Korea. Kevlar fiber (Length: 50±5 mm. Fineness: 1.5D.) was obtained from DuPont Company, America.
The used materials such as high strength PET fiber, Kevlar fiber and low melting point PET fiber are under the opening process in order to prevent fiber from stacking together. Fix the content of Kevlar with 20%, vary the high strength PET fiber with 40%, 50%, 60%, 70% and 80% and alter the low-melting point PET fiber with 0%, 10%, 20%, 30% and 40%, respectively. Subsequently, place fiber into the opening machine and manufacture non-woven fabric under the forming process with 150 needles/ min. The composite nonwoven fabric is estimated its mechanical properties after heat treatment. The figure 1 was shown the non-woven fabric after hot treatment.
Figure 1. The HPET/Kevlar/LMPET composite nonwoven fabrics after thermal treatment.
Test
Tensile strength test
Tensile strength of composite fabric was measured by using an INSTRON5566 testing machine running at 300±10 mm/min and related to ASTM D5035-06.
Tear strength test
Tear strength was related to CNS 12915 and measured two directions such as CD and MD of samples. Samples were cut into 75 mm×150 mm and testing machine was running at 300±10 mm/min and gauge length is 25 mm.
Static-rate punch test
The punching-resistant strength of composite fabric was measured by using an INSTRON5566 testing machine running at 508 mm/min and related to ASTM F1342-05. The specification of sample was 10 × 10 cm2.
The air permeability of composite fabric was estimated by TEXTEST FX3300 testing machine
Results and Discussion
From Fig.2, the air permeability of composite nonwoven fabric enhanced as the content of high strength PET increased, which the amount of fiber decreased caused the fabric density lower. The surface of the low melting PET fibers formed bonding with neighbor fibers, and the entire fabric structure became reticular, which caused the air permeability of composite nonwoven fabric lower.
Fig.2. The air permeability of high strength PET fiber/Kevlar fiber/low melting PET fiber. The content of high strength PET fiber varied from 40-80 %, and Kevlar fixed at 20 %.
Fig.3 The Stress-Displacement curves of non-thermal treated Kevlar/PET fabrics. The content of high strength PET fiber varied from 40-80 %, and Kevlar fixed at 20 %.
Fig.3 showed the Stress-Displacement curves of no thermal-treated Kevlar/PET composite fabrics, it revealed that the puncture-resistance strength enhanced as the content of high strength PET fiber increased, which the high strength PET fibers had benzene rings to strengthen composite fabrics. The strength of low melting PET fibers lowered than the high strength PET fibers, which the latter were under the three-stage tensile process and appropriately distributed stretch ratio of PET fiber.
Fig.4 showed the Stress-Displacement curves of Kevlar/PET composite fabrics, it revealed that the composite fabrics which under heat treatment had better puncture-resistance stress than no heat-treated composite fabrics. The bonding between fibers formed by low melting PET fiber enhanced the punctual-resistant ability of composite fabrics. Fig.5 obviously revealed that the strength of Kevlar/PET composite fabrics enhanced as the content of high strength PET fiber added and heat-treated composite fabrics gained better punctual-resistant ability.
Fig.4 The Stress-Displacement curves of thermal-treated Kevlar/PET fabrics. The content of high strength PET fiber varied from 40-80 %, low melting PET fiber changed from 0-40 % and Kevlar fixed at 20 wt%. Basic weight: 250 g/m2. Needle-punching density: 150 needles/min.
Fig.5 The puncture-resistance strength of Kevlar/PET composite fabrics with different content of high strength PET fibers. Low melting PET fiber varied from 0-40 % and Kevlar fixed at 20 wt%. Basic weight: 250 g/m2. Needle-punching density: 150 needles/min.
Conclusion
In the research, the high strength PET fiber, Kevlar and low melting PET fiber were composited to produce composite nonwoven fabrics. When the content of high strength PET fiber increased to 80 % from 40 %, the air permeability enhanced up to 102 %. But the air permeability of composite fabrics decreased after heat treatment. The strength on CD increased to 142 N from 49.3 N, up to 188 %. The strength was also on the increase after heat treatment because of the bonding formed by low melting PET fiber helped improving its mechanical property, the strength raised from 284.3 N to 555 N. According to the research, the cushion-package composite fabrics which processed by recycled high strength PET had good mechanical property and also endowed discarded selvage a new life.
Acknowledgement
The authors would especially like to thank National Science Council of the Taiwan, for financially supporting this research under Contract NSC 102-2621-M-166-001.
References
[1] B.S. Yilbas and S.S. Akhtar: Opt. Lasers Eng. 50 2012), p. 204.
[2] S. Rana, D. Fanga, X. Zonga, B.S. Hsiaoa, B. Chua and P.M. Cunniff: Polymer. 42 (2001), p. 1601.
[3] T.T. Li, R. Wang, C.W. Lou and J.H. Lin: Text. Res. J. 82 (2012), p. 1597.
[4] T.T. Li, R. Wang, C.W. Lou, C.H. Huang and J.H. Lin: Fiber Polym. 14 (2013), p. 258. [5] T.T. Li, R. Wang, C.W. Lou, M.C. Lin and J.H. Lin: Text. Res. J. 2013, Published online
before print 20 May.
