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Updated: Jan 26, 2026

Fabrication of the Thermoplastic Microfluidic Channels
Published on: February 3, 2008
A Thermoplastic Multilayered Carbon-Fabric/Polycarbonate Laminate Prepared by a Two-Step Hot-Press Technique
Xiaokang Liu1, Binbin Yang2, Longsheng Lu3
1School of Mechanical & Automotive Engineering, South China University of Technology, 381# Wushan Road, Guangzhou 510641, China. liuxk58@scut.edu.cn.
Abstract:
Carbon fiber (CF) reinforced thermoplastic composites have gradually become increasingly popular in composite production owing to their lower hazard level, good structural flexibility and recyclability. In this work, a multilayered carbon⁻fabric/polycarbonate laminate (multi-CFPL) was fabricated by a two-step hot-press process, mainly based on the thermoplastic properties of its polycarbonate (PC) matrix. Different from the conventional one-step method, the two-step hot-press process was composed of two separate procedures. First, a unit-hot-press operation was introduced to prepare a single-layered carbon⁻fabric/PC laminate (simplified as unit-CFPL). Subsequently, a laminating-hot-press was employed to compress several as-prepared unit-CFPLs bonded together. This combined process aims to reduce the hot-press temperature and pressure, as well as facilitate the structure designability of this new composite. Several mechanical investigations were conducted to analyze the effect of the hot-press parameters and unit-CFPL numbers on the performance of this multi-CFPL material, including flexural, uniaxial tensile and impact tests. The results reveal that the multi-CFPL exhibits a good stability of flexural and tensile properties in terms of strength and modulus. Furthermore, during impact tests, the multi-CFPL presents an accelerated growth of peak force and energy absorption capability with increasing unit-CFPL layers.
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