Research on glass fiber/microcellular unsaturated polyester composites

Glass fiber/microcellular unsaturated polyester composites (GF/MCUP) were prepared using the supersaturated gas technology. Technological process included three stages. The effect of processing parameters on average cell size, cell density, impact strength and tensile strength was investigaed by orthogonal experiment. The results indicated that the major factor affecting them was the temperature in stage II (T-2). Under the optimizing processing condition, the average cell size of GF/MCUP was about 8 pm and the cell density was 1.57x10(9) cells/cm(3). It was found that impact strength of GF/MCUP increased 88.81 and 188.12 % than that of glass fiber/unsaturated polyester composites (GF/UP) and unsaturated polyester plastics (UP), respectively. The corresponding 16.56 and 69.25 % increase in tensile strength-to-weight ratio were gained over that of GF/UP and UP, respectively.