Cellulose acetate butyrate (CAB) has long been used as a composite matrix as part of fabric coatings in the aerospace industry. It also has the ability to form thin tough films by casting. This property can be exploited to make experimental long nanofibre composites. Polyvinyl alcohol (PVoH) fibres were electrospun to use as the reinforcing element, these fibres were cast into CAB films to produce composite test specimens.

The electrospinning machine used for this work has a constant head device to feed the spinning head (a standard micropipette tip). The use of this type of constant pressure feed allows the user to establish a stable meniscus for the formation of the Taylor cone, and consequent drawing of fibre, the rate of meniscus replenishment is automatically matched to rate of fibre removal.  A passive method was used to produce fibres with a high degree of orientation, and random orientated fibre was also manufactured.

The material properties of the composites were examined using an Instron Universal Tester, and the mode of failure of the composites was examined by scanning electron microscopy (SEM).

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