• Advanced Composite Materials
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.225-233
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• 2008

The analysis in this paper is focused on the pattern of mixing of filaments over a cross-section of hybrid yarns according to different combinations of reinforcement and matrix filament yarns through microscopic view. The volume content of filament in hybrid yarn cross-section was maintained at 50% for both reinforcement and matrix, and the hybrid yarns count at 600 tex throughout the experiments. It was observed from the experiments that diameters of reinforcement and matrix filaments have strong effects particularly on the pattern of mixing of filaments over a cross-section of hybrid yarns such that the hybrid yarns with more or less equal diameters of reinforcement and matrix filaments showed considerably even distributions over the hybrid yarn cross-section. This paper also investigates the possibility of hybridizing carbon/aramid, carbon/glass and aramid/glass matrices through the commingling process. In the experiment, several process parameters were selected and they include pressure, yarn oversupply-rate and different nozzle types. As a result of these experiments, it was concluded that the hybridized materials show better performance than individual reinforced filament yarns in terms of mechanical properties. For small tensile forces, the carbon/glass/matrix combination turned out to be good enough for general purpose applications.