On studies of tensile properties in injection molded short carbon fiber reinforced PEEK composite

Both elastic modulus and strength of injection molded carbon fiber filled poly-ether-ether-ketone (PEEK) composite are studied under tension. The measured moduli and ultimate strengths of injection molded carbon fiber reinforced PEEK have been compared with the model predicted values. For injection molded PEEK composite, the experimentally obtained values of tensile modulus show a fair agreement but those of the tensile strength show a poor agreement with the theoretically predicted values. Many processing factors seem to be more critical issue for the strength than the stiffness of short-fiber reinforced composites. Considering the service performance of composites depends on three interactions — material, design and processing, monitoring the processing can be critical to have a best performance of composite. Processing factors have been discussed in cases of short carbon fiber reinforced PEEK composite based on the comparision between experimental and theoretically predicted data to obtain the best composite material.