Effect of processing parameter on tensile properties of lamina unidirectional carbon fiber reinforced polyamide-6

Injection Molding is one of the most popular processing methods for producing a plastic product and plastic-based composite. Principally this process converting the solid granules into plastic melt by external heating and internal friction of granules against each other, then shaping the product into desired geometry by injecting the melt into the mold. This study presents an experimental investigation on manufacturing unidirectional carbon fiber reinforced Polyamide 6 using an injection molding method. The effect of injection pressure and nozzle temperature on the tensile properties of composite lamina were investigated in this study. Taguchi design of experiment was used to determine the optimum parametric factor that produces the optimum tensile properties and to define the contribution of each factor on the targeted responses. The experimentation on the molded specimen proved that better tensile strength and modulus can be achieved by applying lower injection pressure and lower nozzle temperature due to a better orientation of fiber and melt stability.