Spinning of hybrid yarns from short Carbon Fiber for composites

• Antragsteller: Professor Dr.-Ing. Chokri Cherif
• Fachliche Zuordnung: Polymere und biogene Werkstoffe und darauf basierende Verbundwerkstoffe
• Förderung: Förderung von 2013 bis 2017
• Projektkennung: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Projektnummer 237692119

Due to the unique combination of low-weight, high strength and stiffness, the demand for carbon fibre (CF) is expected to grow tremendously. On the other hand, the need for the recycling/re-use of CF is a current issue due to environmental and economical reasons. Fibre waste arises from all the processing steps up to the final product. With the development of innovative recycling technologies, it is possible to derive CF from composites effectively. Moreover, there are a number of sources available for waste CF from different process scraps. Currently, the waste CFs are mainly used as short and milled fibres which are used as non-structural components. The idea is to develop materials which exhibit significant performance enhancement and offer added value. The obvious and challenging tasks in the regard are to develop the fundamental knowledge for the understanding of the yarn formation process and reveal the limit to manufacture of high performance staple yarns from short CF. The ability to manufacture yarns (from short waste CF) would greatly expand the application of CF as reinforcements, which is important from the economical and environmental point of views. However, for the research approach of manufacturing of staple yarns starting from short CF or mixing with short thermoplastic fibres is completely new and less information about it can be found. Due to the special characteristics of CF compared to the conventional textile fibres, especially the lack of natural crimp and higher sensitivity to shear force, it is difficult to process CF in spinning processes. However, the fundamental scientific investigation regarding the processing of CF is not yet done. Therefore, the need for the research for the better understanding about fibre-fibre cohesion and in the formation of yarns having higher tensile properties starting from short CF of different lengths which is available from different waste and recycling sources for the application in textile reinforced composite is high. The objective of this project is to acquire better understanding about the fibre to fibre cohesion of brittle CF fibre and its influence on the processability in different yarn manufacturing steps and fibre web, sliver and yarn properties. The extensive theoretical and experimental investigations in this proposed project should be able to establish the relationship and interaction between material parameter, different process parameters of spinning (i.e. carding, drawing, flyer and friction spinning) and yarn properties, which will make a basis to develop a mathematical model. The research work aims at the understanding of the basics and material behaviour for the development of new spun yarn structures from CF on defined length which will show at least 80% of the mechanical properties (i.e. E-module, strength) of filament yarn in composites.

• DFG-Verfahren: Sachbeihilfen