Nondestructive determination of crystallinity by diffuse reflectance FT-IR in composites made from polyphenylene sulphide and carbon fibres

Diffuse reflection Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy can be used for nondestructive determination of the degree of crystallinity at the surface of composite materials made from polyphenylene sulphide reinforced with carbon fibres. In particular, the ratio of the heights of the peaks at 1075 and 1093 cm^–1 can be used as a quantitative indicator of the crystallinity. This has been confirmed by annealing highly amorphous prepreg to give samples of varying degrees of crystallinity, in which case a good linear relationship is observed between the peak ratio and the enthalpy of crystallization as determined by differential scanning calorimetry.