The DESIGN of FIBRE MANAGEMENT DEVICES to OBTAIN HIGHER ISOTROPIC SHEET in a LONG GLASS-FIBRE REINFORCED SHEET EXTRUSION PROCESS PART I - DESIGN of the FIBRE SEPARATING DEVICE

Generally, in commercial practice, glass fibre reinforcement is introduced into polymeric materials by two ways. The first way is by mixing discrete fibres into a polymer before shaping and the second way is by constructing a predetermined form from fibres, and then bringing it into contact with the polymer or resin. This study describes work on a sheet extrusion process which is aimed to redesign a special Fibre Separating Device to have long glass fibre reinforced impact resistant thermoformable sheet. In the process of extrusion, glass filaments, typically 6-12 mm long, are tended to small amount of separations or rejoin themselves. In such structures of thermoplastic composites most of fibres are tended to locate in flow direction of the process. This gives anistropic structure of finished component.