TENSILE, FLEXURAL AND IMPACT PROPERTIES OF A THERMOPLASTIC MATRIX REINFORCED BY GLASS-FIBER AND GLASS BEAD HYBRIDS

The tensile and flexural properties, together with the unnotched and notched impact strengths of acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS), glass bead (GB) and glass fiber (GF) ternary composites have been studied. The tensile strengths of the hybrid composites were predicted, from a theory formulated in this study, by using the strengths of the ABS/GB and ABS/GF composites alone. The addition of even a small quantity of glass fiber to ABS or ABS/GB composites changes the mode of deformation from one which shows vacuole growth and crazing to brittle failure. Thus, the elongation at break, the area under the stress/strain curve and the impact energy decrease sharply with the introduction of glass fiber to ABS or ABS/GB composites.