Recycled glass fibre/polyester composites : processing and mechanical characterization

The present article demonstrates the recycling and reuse of waste glass fibre fabrics. The recycled regenerated long glass fibres are impregnated with polyester resin to study the mechanical performance under tensile loading conditions. The specimens are prepared from the laminates made by using vacuum assisted resin infusion technique. Therefore high quality specimens are chosen for this study. Several processing issues were identified and also evaluated the quality of specimen before the test and evaluated fracture surfaces of the tested sample to predict the failure modes. The research study includes the development of silane treatments for the recycled glass fibres to regenerate the glass fibre surface. Experiments are conducted for the reference laminate (CSM as received), Heat Treated glass fibres without any sizings on surface, and silane treated glass fibres with heat treatment. Scanned electron microscopy demonstrated the differences in the fibre surface patterns. The results demonstrate the comparison of tensile performances both at single fibre and composite levels