The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Nov. 24, 1998
Filed:
Jul. 13, 1997
John J McGrath, DeWitt, MI (US);
Jeffrey M Wille, Mission, TX (US);
Board of Trustees operating Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI (US);
Abstract
An apparatus and method for determining the Fiber Orientation Distribution (FOD) in an injection molded polymer is described. The transparent sample (12) is comprised of a matrix material, reinforcing fibers and opaque tracer fibers (12A) which are analyzed to determine the FOD and the fiber length of all fibers in the sample. The sample is formed in an injection molding apparatus (14) which includes an injection mold (16) and an injection molding unit (34). The sample is constructed and placed in the imaging apparatus (58) in order to be optically sectioned. The imaging apparatus includes an inverted microscope (60), a camera with a controller (62), a motion controller board (64) and a frame grabber (66). The sample is scanned along three (3) axes in x-y plane in the field of view of the microscope at increasing depths in the sample along the z-axis which is the line of sight of the microscope. The 3D images are analyzed to determine the FOD and fiber length of the fibers in the sample. The apparatus and method are controlled by a computer (100) using a series of programs. The programs include the Chop program, the Step program, the Acquire program, the Motion Controller and Frame Grabber (MCFG) program, the Pseudo program, the Thin3D program, the 3D-FODAS program, the DiffFOD program and the Fibor program.