New Basalt - Plant Fiber Reinforced Polypropylene Composites Development

Methods diminishing or eliminating the toxic evaporation and material pollution of wood composite boards in automobile/vessel have been pursued for years,with the improvement of living quality of human being.A novel interior board for automobile and vessel is developed,using ramie-basalt-low melting point polypropylene fibers. Ramie fiber is fungi-and moth-proof;basalt fiber is fire resistant,strong,fire and noise insulative;polypropylene shows no toxic evaporation.The combination of these three fibers meets all the needs of automobile and vessel interior boards and avoids poisonous car and ship cabin(ie.The pollution within a car or a ship cabin is beyond the critical level,due to the toxic evaporation of paint,glue of interior boards and other chemicals).In addition,ramie is a natural fiber;basalt powder is a traditional fertilizer;and polypropylene is a low melt point fiber.Therefore,the developed board is environmental friendly and can re-manufactured easily.This study is significant both to reduce of deforestation and poisonous harm inside car and ship cabin.The domestic basalt,ramie and polypropylene fibers were utilized into laminated boards.The relationships between physical properties of composite and the processing parameters were carefully examined for optimization.The composite was made through the following steps:at first,ramie and polypropylene fibers were combed,the cut into felt at certain sizes;in the second step,basalt web were laid off to a felt to formulate a sandwich structure or completely mixed up;finally,the mixture was thermo-compressed into designed board.The pretreatment of ramie and basalt fibers, opening and carding of ramie and polypropylene fibers in the initial processing steps were analyzed in terms of processing parameters.In the rest processing steps,the influences of five parameters,including temperature,time,pressure,fraction of each fiber and the composite structure,on the performance of composite were investigated. The optimal parameters were determined as follows:thermo-compression temperature was 195℃,compression time was 12min,compression pressure was 10MPa,the mixture ratio of the fiber contents was 60:30:10(polypropylene:basalt fiber:ramie) and structure was sandwich.The tensile strength,bending module and the total energy within impact of a typical optimal sample were 101.58MPa,8416.09MPa and 2.09J, respectively.The computer simulation was conducted using the finite element method,which validates that the tensile rapture experiments in reality and simulation were consistent. More detailed information about the tensile test was shown in the colored maps of simulation results.