Computed Tomography of Polymer Composites Reinforced with Natural Short Fiber

Abstract

X-ray computed tomography is a technique that provides a high level of detail in three-dimensional (3D) inspections of composite materials, but the acquisition of phase contrast together with absorption contrast in traditional tomography makes it difficult to obtain information in some composite materials reinforced with natural fibers. In this work, X-ray computed tomography has been used to evaluate an image reconstruction process using the phase-contrast method with three different algorithms (MBA, BAC, PPR). The results of the image reconstructions were compared to traditional methods. Additionally, details of the variation of parameters in each reconstruction method are presented. The phase-contrast image capture technique did not provide an adequate reconstruction of images that showed similar contrast. Finally, the absorption contrast was applied to analyze morphological properties of a bio-based composite showing a significant decrease of fiber length distribution during the manufacturing process.