Effect of silane coupling agent on mechanical performance of glass fibre

Mechanical performance of commercially manufactured unsized and γ-aminopropylsilane sized boron-free E-glass fibres has been characterised using single-fibre tensile test. Both apparent fibre modulus and fibre strength were found to strongly depend on fibre gauge length. The average strength of sized fibres was found 40–80 % higher than unsized fibres at different gauge lengths. Weibull analysis suggested that the failure mode of unsized fibres could be described by unimodal Weibull distribution, whereas the strength distribution of sized fibres appeared to be controlled by two exclusive types of flaw population, types A and B. Comparison of the Weibull plots between unsized and sized fibres revealed that the strength of unsized fibres was likely to be dominated by type A flaws existing on the bare glass surface and type B flaws may be related to the defects on the glass surface coated with silane. This was partially supported by the observation of fractured cross-sectional area using SEM. It was, therefore, proposed that the strength difference between unsized and sized glass fibres may be more reasonably interpreted from the surface protection standpoint as opposed to the flaw healing effect. The results obtained from this study showed that silane coupling agent plays a critical role in the strength retention of commercially manufactured E-glass fibres and the silane effect on the fibre strength is also affected by the change in gauge length of the sample.