Yiping Qiu

Modifying Nylon and Polypropylene Fabrics with Atmospheric Pressure Plasmas

Polypropylene and nylon 66 fabrics are subjected to atmospheric pressure He and He-O2 plasmas for selected exposure time intervals. Scanning electron microscopy anal ysis of the fabrics shows no apparent changes in the plasma-treated nylon fiber surfaces, but significant surface morphological changes for the polypropylene. Surface analyses of the nylon filaments reveal small differences in the surface carbon and oxygen contents between the treated and control groups. The surface oxygen and nitrogen content of the polypropylene fabric increases significantly after treatment in both He and He-O2 plasmas. There is a slight decrease in nylon fabric tensile strength after treatment in He plasma for 3 minutes, while. there is no significant change in tensile strength of the nylon fabric treated with He-O2 after exposure times of up to 8 minutes.

Effect of atmospheric plasma treatment on desizing of PVA on cotton

Both air/He and air/O 2/He atmospheric plasma treatments are applied to desize PVA on cotton, then PDR (percent desizing ratio) and tensile strengths of cotton fabrics and single yams are measured. XPS and SEM are used to analyze the effects of atmospheric pressure plasma treatments on PVA. These treatments can both remove some PVA sizing and significantly improve PDR by washing, especially by cold water washing. The tensile strengths of cotton fabrics treated with atmospheric pressure plasma are the same as for the unsized fabric. XPS analysis of the plasma treated PVA films reveals surface chemical changes such as chain scission and formation of polar groups, which promote the solubility of PVA in cold water. Air/O2/He plasma is more effective than air/He plasma on PVA desizing.

The effect of atmospheric pressure helium plasma treatment on the surface and mechanical properties of ultrahigh-modulus polyethylene fibers

Ultrahigh-modulus polyethylene fibers were treated with atmospheric pressure He plasma on a capacitively coupled device at a frequency of 7.5 kHz and a He partial vapor pressure of 3.43 × 103 Pa. The fibers were treated for 0, 1, and 2 min. Microscopic analysis showed that the surfaces of the fibers treated with He plasma were etched and that the 2-min He plasma-treated group had rougher surfaces than the 1-min He plasma-treated group. XPS analysis showed a 200% increase in the oxygen content and a 200% increase in the concentration of C—O bonds (from 11.4% to 31%) and the appearance of C=O bonds (from 0% to 7.6%) on the surface of plasma-treated fibers for the 2-min He plasma-treated group. In the microbond test, the 2-min He plasma-treated group had a 100% increase of interfacial shear strength over that of the control group, while the 1-min He plasma-treated group did not show a significant difference from the control group. The 2-min He plasma-treated group also showed a 14% higher single-fiber tensile strength than the control group.

Atmospheric pressure helium + oxygen plasma treatment of ultrahigh modulus polyethylene fibers

Ultrahigh modulus polyethylene fibers were treated with atmospheric pressure helium + oxygen plasma in a capacitively coupled device at a frequency of 7.5 kHz. The fibers were treated for 0, 0.5, 1, 1.5, and 2 min. The surfaces of the fibers treated with He + O2 plasma were etched and micro-cracks were formed. XPS analysis showed a 65ndash213% increase in oxygen content on the surfaces of all plasma-treated fibers, except for the 1.5 min group. An increase in the concentration of C—O and the appearance of C=O bonds on the surfaces of plasma-treated fibers were observed. In the micro-bond test, He + O2 plasma-treated groups had a 65–104% increase in interfacial shear strength over that of the control. The tensile strength of the fibers was either unchanged or decreased by 10–13% by the plasma treatments.

Effects of atmospheric pressure helium/air plasma treatment on adhesion and mechanical properties of aramid fibers

In order to investigate the effect of atmospheric pressure plasmas on adhesion between aramid fibers and epoxy, aramid fibers were treated with atmospheric pressure helium/air for 15, 30 and 60 s on a capacitively-coupled device at a frequency of 5.0 kHz and He outlet pressure of 3.43 kPa. SEM analysis at 10 000× magnification showed no significant surface morphological change resulted from the plasma treatments. XPS analysis showed a decrease in carbon content and an increase in oxygen content. Deconvolution analysis of C1s, N1s and O1s peaks showed an increase in surface hydroxyl groups that can interact with epoxy resin. The microbond test showed that the plasma treatment for 60 s increased interfacial shear strength by 109% over that of the control (untreated). The atmospheric pressure plasma increased single fiber tensile strength by 16-26%.

The Use of Atmospheric Pressure Plasma Treatment in Desizing PVA on Viscose Fabrics

In this study, both air-oxygen-helium and air-helium atmospheric pressure plasma treatments were employed to desize PVA on a rayon (viscose) fabric. Both the plasma treatments were able to remove some of the PVA on the rayon fabric and increase PVA solubility in cold water, resulting in a higher weight loss in cold washing. The effect of the atmospheric pressure plasmas became greater as the treatment time increased. Plasma treatment followed by one cold and one hot washing had the same effect as the conventional chemical treatments followed by two cycles of cold and hot washing. The atmospheric plasma treatment did not have negative effect on rayon fabric tensile strength.

Fabrication and characterization of three-dimensional cellular-matrix composites reinforced with woven carbon fabric

Abstract A low-density three-dimensional cellular-matrix composite reinforced with woven carbon fabric (3DCMC), was fabricated by means of a pressure-quenching molding technique with nitrogen gas as the blowing agent. Epoxy resins in the interstices of yarns in the 3DCMC samples were vacated during the foaming process and needle shaped voids were also generated between fibers in yarns. The average density of the 3DCMC samples was about 10 3 kg/m 3 , and their density reduction was 28–37% compared with a regular matrix composite with the same preform. The 3DCMC has 32–42% higher specific tensile strength, 14–37% greater specific tensile modulus, a lower specific flexure strength but 35% higher specific tangent modulus in 3-point bending, a 30–40% higher specific impact energy absorption at an impact velocity around 120 m/s and a similar specific energy absorption at about 220 m/s. Meanwhile, the 3-point bending and impact test results of 3DCMC showed that they have different fracture mechanisms from that of 3DRMC.

Estimation of the axial tensile modulus of a particle-reinforced composite fiber with variable radius

Abstract The modulus of a fiber is difficult to measure, especially when the radius of the fiber changes along the length. The use of an arithmetic average radius or volume average radius to calculate fiber modulus leads to an underestimate of the modulus. A model for measuring and calculating the true tensile modulus of a fiber that has large radius variation is proposed. The model has been used to calculate the modulus of a Wollastonite particle-reinforced polypropylene fiber. The difference between the modulus calculated from the model and that from either the arithmetic or volume-average radius increases linearly as the coefficient of variation (CV) of the fiber radius increases, especially when CV

Experimental and numerical analyses on the stiffness of three-dimensional woven carbon preform reinforced cellular matrix composites

Abstract Three-dimensional cellular matrix composites (3DCMC) and three-dimensional regular matrix composites (3DRMC) were fabricated and tensile tested. The experimental results showed that the stiffness of 3DCMC was lower than that of the 3DRMC. Because of significant density reduction of 3DCMC, their specific stiffness was found to be 12–19% greater than that of the 3DRMC. Stiffness averaging method was used for prediction of the tensile modulus for both 3DCMC and 3DRMC materials. Reasonable agreement between the computational and the experimental results were obtained for 3DRMC (within 3–6%) but a larger discrepancy (18%) existed for 3DCMC. By treating the whole 3DCMC as a special type of rigid foam material, an empirical correlation between the ratio of the moduli and that of the densities of 3DCMC and 3DRMC was used to accurately predict stiffness of 3DCMC from that of 3DRMC (within ±2–5%).