SAMPE Journal - March/April 2023 - 37

INTRODUCTION
Carbon fiber (CF) reinforced polymers (CFRPs)
are beginning to be widely used in industries,
other than aerospace, due to recent scale-up in CF
production and decrease in cost1-7
. As CFRPs are
utilized more, the demand for CF will also increase
and cause potential supply chain issues8-10
. For
original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) having
a secure supply chain is critical to ensure material
will be available for manufacturing. To ease
potential supply chain constraints on CF for OEMs,
two strategies can be implemented: 1) substitute
some of the CF content with an alternative fiber
and 2) utilize recycled materials.11-14
Before either
strategy is adopted by OEMs, understanding how
introducing an alternative fiber or recycled content
effects the mechanical properties of an established
composite system must be well-characterized.
When multiple fiber phases are incorporated
into the same composite material, the composite
system is typically referred to as a hybrid
composite.15
The other strategy that provides OEMs
opportunity to create certainty in the CF supply
chain is to utilize recycled material. A cost-effective
recycling technique that creates opportunity for
re-manufacturing of the composite systems is
mechanical
recycling.17-19 Mechanical
recycling
methods typically utilize a shredder/granulator
system that produces granulate through a rotating
blade system that cuts and passes material through
a screen with a specified mesh size.19, 20
At this
point, the granulate can either be re-pelletized
via extrusion or directly fed into a thermoplastic
processing equipment to produce new parts or test
specimens.19
While both strategies to ease supply chain
Inevitably, when a portion of the
CF content is substituted with another fiber a
CF-based hybrid composite is created. The goal
in replacing CF content is to replace as much
CF fiber content as possible without drastically
compromising the material properties. The change
in material properties will directly be influenced by
the selected alternate fiber and the amount of CF
replaced.13, 14, 16
concerns for CFRPs can be implemented
simultaneously by OEMs, utilizing mechanically
recycled is the primary focus in this work . Here, a
case study implementing the strategy of utilizing
recycled was carried out by employing a carbonfiber
based hybrid composite system comprised
of polyamide-6,6 (PA66) filled with 30 wt% CF
and 10 wt% of an alternative fiber (AltF). The AltF
is a propriety material selected by Ford Motor
Company, therefore its information has been not
disclosed in the current work. AltF was utilized
as the alternative fiber in this study to replace 10
wt% CF and shredded granulate was dry blended
with virgin pellets to create samples with varied
amounts of recycled content.
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