Abstract
In discontinuous carbon fiber reinforced thermoplastics molded by kneading resin and carbon fiber, controlling fiber length, dispersion and orientation state is an issue because those dominant mechanical properties of them. Therefore, the methods to measure fiber orientation distribution in the composites are indispensable. X-ray structure analysis is an effective means for the measurement. Because it allows us to acquire data in a short time without destruction of specimens. We established the method for estimating the fiber orientation distribution from the X-ray diffraction image of carbon fiber reinforced PA6 (CFR-PA6). The X-ray diffraction image shows overlapped signals correspond structures form carbon fibers and PA6, respectively. We assumed that the intensity distribution of each signal can be express Gaussian function in diffraction and azimuthal angle direction. To extract signal of carbon fibers from the image, the waveform separation in diffraction angle direction was carried out. Subsequently, the extracted intensity distribution was converted to fiber length distribution by the waveform separation in azimuthal angle direction. This method was applied to CFR-PA6s with known and simple orientation distributions such as pseudo-isotropic and the estimated results almost correspond to the expected values.
