High Strength E-Glass/CNF Fibers Nanocomposite

Glass fibers are among the most versatile industrial materials known today, where 4 billion pounds of glass are used every year. They are readily produced from raw materials, which are available in virtually unlimited supply. To compensate for its low tensile strength, glass is usually mixed with other materials such as nanofibers and nanospheres, to form what is called glass nanocomposites . Nevertheless, glass composites still suffer from different weaknesses such as: poor dispersion, poor alignment and orientation of reinforcing materials (due to their short lengths relative to the defect sizes in the composite matrices), in addition to the difficulties associated with handling randomly oriented nanofibers and nanotubes in an industrial setting. The aim of this work is to develop a novel method for utilizing carbon nanofibers to increase the strength of glass fibers by producing continuous hybrid glass fibers. The method makes use of the high aspect ratio of the CNFs along with the glass filament drawing process to imbed, disperse and align the CNFs in glass fibers. Short CNTs will bridge the small cracks in the glass fiber filaments, whereas, relatively long CNFs will take care of the larger defects. The novel hybrid glass fibers will have a wide range of applications particularly in aerospace and automotive industrie