Relationships between microstructure, fracture–surface morphology, and mechanical properties in ethylene and propylene polymers and copolymers
✍ Scribed by Fabrice Lapique; Paul Meakin; Jens Feder; Torstein Jøssang
- Publisher
- John Wiley and Sons
- Year
- 2000
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 419 KB
- Volume
- 77
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0021-8995
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✦ Synopsis
The fracturing of four different polyolefin materials (a polypropylene homopolymer, a propylene-ethylene copolymer, a polyethylene homopolymer, and an ethylene-hexene copolymer) was studied with the objective of developing a better understanding of the relationships between the morphology of semicrystalline polymers, the morphology and growth kinetics of their fracture surfaces, and their mechanical properties. A scanning electron microscope and an optical microscope were used to obtain images of the fracture surfaces. The samples were injection-molded or hotpressed to generate different microstructures. Fracture experiments were performed at 23, 0, and Ϫ20°C to generate fracture surfaces with different morphologies from the same supermolecular structure. It appears that the fracture propagates through the spherulites in a brittle manner. The macroscopic aspect of the fracture surfaces is temperature-independent and changes are visible only at the microscopic scale. Over the range of temperatures studied, the rms roughness [root mean square roughness ϭ ͱ1/n ¥ iϭn n ͑Z i Ϫ Z ͒ 2 ] decreased by only about 20%, while the fracture energy of all but one of the materials (a high-density ethylene-hexene copolymer) decreased by about 60% as the temperature was reduced.
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