Acquisition of Instruments for Polymer Fiber Characterization and Student Training

University Of Oklahoma Norman Campus, Norman OK

Investigators

Abstract

This grant is for the purchase of three instruments designed to improve the fabrication and characterization of polymer fibers: a differential scanning calorimeter (DSC), a tensile tester (TT) and an infrared camera (IRC). These three instruments allow examination of the fabrication of fibers both on-line (as the fiber is being formed) and off-line. Projects that will utilize these instruments include carbon nanotubes that are mixed with a variety of thermoplastic polymers and drawn into fibers in order to increase the modulus and tenacity of the final product. The DSC measures how the nanotubes affect the crystallinity and glass transition of the product. The TT measures the mechanical properties of the product as a function of different draw rates and temperatures. The IRC permits on-line temperature measurements during the formation of the fibers; such knowledge is used to mathematically model and improve the fiber formation process. The three instruments will also be used in several other active projects involving the high speed formation of nonwoven webs of fiber during the process known as melt blowing. Another very active area involves fiber-based composites that use a filler modification technique termed admicellar polymerization; both the DSC and TT are integral to this work. The broader impacts of this proposal are primarily related to improved student education. With the new instruments, the students will work with instrumentation that they will contact in their subsequent careers. Several undergraduates are employed in the laboratory during the year. Presently, more than half of these undergraduates are under-represented students (women, Hispanics, and African-Americans). The students participate in the academic/industrial fiber consortium at the university, give oral presentations at conferences, and act as coauthors on papers. The instrumentation will be used in the training of students and in classroom demonstrations. This proposal will also allow the expansion of the academic/industrial interface that exists at the University of Oklahoma. As alluded to above, the university has an academic/industrial consortium for the development of nonwoven fiber technology. For more than a decade this organization has been supported by a number of Fortune 500 companies (e.g., 3M, DuPont and Procter & Gamble.