Evaluation of Fiber Orientation in Ferromagnetic Short-Fiber Reinforced Composites by Magnetic Anisotropy

Controlling preferentially oriented fibers in short-fiber reinforced composites is of great interest in determining various properties of the materials. This paper presents a new technique, the magnetic anisotropy measurement, which can effectively determine the fiber orientation in short-fiber reinforced composites. Theoretical magnetic torque curves are calculated for the composites with several different fiber distributions. The results are compared with those in prior work; the orientation descriptor obtained from the magnetic anisotropy measurement is mathematically equivalent to the well-known Hermans’ orientation parameter.