Non-Isothermal Crystallization Kinetics of Short Glass Fiber Reinforced Poly (Ether Ether Ketone) Composites

Due to its excellent chemical and temperature resistances, short glass fiber reinforced poly (ether ether ketone) composite (SGF/PEEK) is a promising material for application in automotive lightweight. Processing conditions, such as cooling rate, need to be well controlled to obtain the optimal crystallite morphology of PEEK composites. Thus, in this paper, the non-isothermal crystallization kinetics and melting behavior of SGF/PEEK were investigated by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) at different cooling rates, and the crystallite sizes were evaluated by the X-ray diffraction technique (XRD). Crystallization kinetics models and effective activation energies were evaluated to determine the crystallization parameters of the composites. The results suggest that a lower cooling rate enlarges the size of crystallites and enhances the uniformity of size distribution. The addition of glass fibers improves the nucleation rate owing to heterogeneous nucleation while decreasing the growth rate due to retarded movement of the polymer chain. The combined Avrami-Ozawa equation was shown to describe accurately the non-isothermal crystallization. The absolute value of the crystallization activation energy for SGF/PEEK is lower than that of pure PEEK.