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but, because of shortening during sample preparation and segregation of long and short fibers, discrepancies exceeding a factor of
two can occur between different experimenters examining the
same material.
A second technique proposed by Rockwool AB of Sweden [1]
uses the increase in viscosity produced by suspending a given
weight of fiber in a viscous liquid such as glycol. This increase is related to the mean fiber length which may be estimated by reference
to calibration standards.
This viscosity approach suffers from several drawbacks, however, for example:
Sample Preparation
Preparation of Pads
33
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0090-3973/82/0003-0033500.40
34
Indicated Fiber
Length, mm
2
3
4
5
6
3.4
1.6
1.6
1.7
2.0
Absolute Cafibration
The technique as outlined above gives a relative measure of fiber
length, but absolute values were clearly desirable and the system
imagewithout
condenser lens
photocell,etc.
cylindrical
condenser lens
"~ I
~
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condensed image
of torn edge
35
IO0
,,e
\
100
longer fibre
\ i
\
---
shorter fibre
0
\\
5O
oo 7
. . . .
\\
o/
,,o/
/0
0o
........
~o
photocell assembly
Reproducibility
Repeated experiments suggest that:
(a) results from different operators measuring the same part of a
sample are virtually identical,
(b) different parts of the same pad give results having a standard
deviation < 10% of the mean, and
(c) measurements from separately prepared pads of the same
material also have a standard deviation < 10% of the mean.
FIG. 3--Calibration of light attenuation values (25 to 75%) against actual length.
Type of Distribution
Before attempting to study artificial samples with known distributions it was necessary to establish the type of distribution occurring in natural samples (for example, mineral wools). This demanded
direct measurement of the fibers in a genuinely representative sample of the material--a task that has proved to be particularly difficult in the past, especially when dealing with mineral wools. The
method devised consisted of dispersing a small amount of fiber
very gently in water with the aid of an imidazoline cationic surfactant. This was slowly filtered onto a large membrane filter that was
then dried and rendered transparent with glycerol triacetate. The
center portion of the sample was magnified, the fibers traced, and
their lengths measured and recorded. The fibers were damaged
very little during this process and, by selecting only the center of
the filter, a representative sample was achieved. Unshortened and
shortened mineral wools and milled glass were each examined in
this way.
The results are shown in Table 2 together with data from the
light attenuation method. Measurements were also made from a
sample of fiber suspension that was simply spread out gently over a
glass slide and the fiber traced and measured.
The concept of "length-average" length that appears in Table 2
is analogous to "weight-average" molecular weights used in polymer science. It measures the total length of fiber occurring at each
length interval rather than the number of fibers, and for most applications it will be the more meaningful average. Length-average
is not significantly influenced by the presence of large numbers of
Method
membrane filter
spread on slide
light attenuation
membrane filter
spread on slide
light attenuation
membrane filter
spread on slide
light attenuation
l,,. mm
~, mm
1.61
1.28
1.67
2.33
. . . . . .
0.77
1.27
0.78
1.21
...
1.4'
1.90
0.44
0.72
. . . . . . .
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o,, mm
Length, mm
1.06
2.11
. ..
0.63
0.60
1.04
0.41
.
319
...
...
1.7
...
...
1.8
36
short fibers in the sample which substantially depress the numberaverage but, because they represent only a small weight fraction of
the total, have little effect on the properties of the material.
Length-average was selected in favor of weight-average because of
the complexities arising out of measuring the diameter of each fiber in addition to its length. The length-average ~/ is calculated
from the following relationship:
= ~FI2/EFI
For samples with large distributions of length, the difference between the number and length-averages can be very significant, for
example, when ~ - a n (standard deviation) the length average can
be almost twice the number average.
The results in Table 2 show that the standard deviation of length
within each sample can indeed by very high--approaching the
number average mean length. This leads to the large discrepancies
between number and length-average mean lengths referred to
above. The fibers in all the samples were found to be distributed
log normally as is common for fibers from a wide range of sources.
Figure 4 shows the distribution for partially shortened mineral
] }
)
F:
I Numbers of fibres I
J
fibre length
I Length of fibres
, mm
-!
fibre length , mm
FIG.
Sufficient material was cut from the carbon and basalt fiber to
lengths corresponding to log normal distributions with the parameters shown in Table 3, that is, with standard deviations of length
ranging from zero up to values close to the number-average mean
length. The mean lengths were then measured using the three different methods. Results are given in Table 3.
The weaker basalt fiber, in a similar manner to mineral wool
samples, tended to be damaged during the membrane filter
method more so than the carbon fiber. This was made apparent by
the introduction of a distribution of lengths in the specimens in
which previously there was none. Again the light attenuation
method gave a value corresponding reasonably with the lengthaverage and, providing that this is recognized, the technique appears to be applicable to samples consisting of fiber with a wide
scatter of lengths.
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37
Method
l,,, m m
6, mm
o,,, mm
as cut
light attenuation
as cut
membrane filter
light attenuation
as cut
membrane filter
light attenuation
as cut
membrane filter
light attentuation
3.4
4.28
1.9
315
3,6
. .
3.0
2,4
6.3'
...
. .
3.0
3.1
31i
3.1
315
2.8
. .
6.3"
5,2
. .
.
0
1.3
311
2.5
514
,..
514
.,,
410
..,
5.4
Acknowledgment
T h e a u t h o r s would like to t h a n k Mr. J. Aspinall of T B A I n d u s trial P r o d u c t s for his statistical c o n t r i b u t i o n s to this work.
Commercial Availability
Shirley D e v e l o p m e n t s ( D i d s b u r y , M a n c h e s t e r , E n g l a n d ) is developing a c o m m e r c i a l version of this e q u i p m e n t .
Length, mm
Reference
[1] British Patent 2 016 534, 26 Sept. 1979.
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