Desenvolvimento de concentrados de PVC reforçados com fibras de vidro longas (LF-PVC) para reforçar compostos de PVC rígido moldados por injeção

Abstract

This work presents a study and development of long glass fiber PVC pellet concentrate (LF-PVC) manufactured by extrusion similar wire coating technique to reinforce pelletized rigid PVC compounds to produce injection molding LF-PVC composites. The incorporation of LF-PVC in rigid PVC compound exhibited mechanical benefits mainly in tensile modulus, flexural modulus and notched impact strength. Injection molding LF-PVC composites with 20 wt% of fiberglass presented tensile and flexural modulus 90% higher than unreinforced rigid PVC; Izod and Charpy notched impact strength 13% and 40% higher than unreinforced rigid PVC, respectively. The reinforcement of rigid PVC with LF-PVC presented slight damage in heat distortion and Vicat temperatures. 20wt% fiberglass PVC composites presented around 10% lower than unreinforced rigid PVC because LF-PVC reinforcement presented little quantity of plasticizers and majority of low molecular weight PVC resin. The innovative technique developed by Grizzo in a preliminary work [1; 2] to incorporate long glass fiber in rigid PVC compound was optimized because the LF-PVC pellets produced presented lower quantity of plasticizer, adequate fiberglass roving with suitable coupling agent (sizing) for PVC and a fiberglass roving tex (g/km) with excellent cost. In summary the reinforcement of injection molding rigid PVC compound with LF-PVC compounds produced unsatisfactory mechanical performance of LF-PVC composites, although that allowed them to compete to long glass fiber polypropylene and polyamide composites in injection molding technical parts under room temperature. Also LF-PVC composites allowed improve usual PVC applications such as connections to reduce thickness or rise dimensional, for example diameter and length, which was not possible before. The last, there are potential applications for LF-PVC composites to be used in special pressurized connections to replace internal metallic reinforcement, and in faucets and other bathroom devices for metal replacement.