Consideration of Accuracy of Quantitative X-Ray CT Analyses for Short-Glass-Fibre-Reinforced Polymers

A novel methodology for the characterization of short fibre reinforced polymers using Xray computed tomography is introduced and evaluated. Scans with high resolution lead to data quality that allows for single fibre examination. Data analysis takes the information of local direction into account to determine centre lines and start- and endpoints. Reproducibility and accuracy are determined for glass fibre filled Polypropylene. Nine analyses of the same specimen show very small standard deviation for fibre length and orientation distribution. Accuracy of up to 97 % is determined by comparing the XCT result with semi-automatically generated ground truth. Variation of resolution shows no influence on fibre orientation but a decrease in mean fibre length for lower resolution. The proposed method leads to accurate results at 2 μm voxel edge length or below for the investigated material system.