Development of Carbon and Other Fiber Tow Spreading System for Thin Fiber Reinforced Composites

Abstract

In order to expand the application of fiber reinforcement as light-weight material it is important to spread the fiber tow in thin geometry. There are various methodologies to spread the fiber tow, however, the spread fiber tow was sometimes not uniform and its cost was very high. In this study we have developed the fiber tow spreading system to obtain the uniform thin fiber tow, and have applied this developed system to fabricate thin fiber tow reinforced adhesive tapes. In this developed system the mechanical load was applied to the fiber tow through the plate with arc-shape edge. By using this system we tried to spread the UHMWPE fiber and aramid fiber.