Surface analysis applied to reinforced composites

Glass fibre reinforced polymer resin laminates are used as circuit boards in electronic equipment. The adhesion of fibres to polymeric resins is essential to good performance. The mechanisms of adhesion involving silane coupling agents are not straightforward because of the complexity of the deposit and the fact that a simple coupling model cannot account far the observations. In order to study these inconsistencies surface analytical techniques have been applied to model surfaces and to the fracture surfaces of fibre composites to identify the nature of the silane deposit and its interaction with the glass substrate and the resin matrix