I am going to be using ABS plastic for vacuum forming. I need to work with a thinner sheet of plastic in order to get a good shape, but it needs to be stronger for repeated use. My question is, can I reinforce the plastic with fiberglass resin or resin alone? I was wondering because I wouldn't want it to react and eat the plastic or heat up and get soft. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
mark is right - strength with any GRP comes from the impregnation of the glass fibre in the resin.
i assume your part is made thin ABS. if you want to strengthen it without adding too much thickness, you could by using a 225g/m2 chopped strand mat or light woven cloth say @ 190g/m2, this would add a fair amount of strength compared to without. it would add about 0.5 - 0.7mm thickness.
you could consider using carbon fibre cloth at say 180gr/m2 or even a carbon kevlar hybrid woven cloth, if you needed shatter or puncture resistance. carbon would increase the strength to weight ratio compared to glass, but the thickness would be similar. cost is another consideration @ about $80 per lineal meter for the carbon cloth, many times more expensive than glass.
for a thinner option you could use 1 or 2 layers of glass surfacing tissue. using only glass surface tissue would be very thin and would take away the brittleness of the ABS plastic, but would not be super strong.
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