On the Effect of Nanofillers on the Environmental Stress Cracking Resistance of Glassy Polymers

  • It is well known that reinforcing polymers with small amounts of nano-sized fillers is one of the most effective methods for simultaneously improving their mechanical and thermal properties. However, only a small number of studies have focused on environ-mental stress cracking (ESC), which is a major issue for premature failures of plastic products in service. Therefore, the contribution of this work focused on the influence of nano-SiO2 particles on the morphological, optical, mechanical, thermal, as well as envi-ronmental stress cracking properties of amorphous-based nanocomposites. Polycarbonate (PC), polystyrene (PS) and poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) nanocom-posites containing different amounts and sizes of nano-SiO2 particles were prepared using a twin-screw extruder followed by injection molding. Adding a small amount of nano-SiO2 caused a reduction in optical properties but improved the tensile, toughness, and thermal properties of the polymer nanocomposites. The significant enhancement in mechanical and thermal properties was attributed to the adequate level of dispersion and interfacial interaction of the SiO2 nanoparticles in the polymer matrix. This situation possibly increased the efficiency of stress transfer across the nanocomposite compo-nents. Moreover, the data revealed a clear dependency on the filler size. The polymer nanocomposites filled with smaller nanofillers exhibited an outstanding enhancement in both mechanical properties and transparency compared with nanocomposites filled with larger particles. The best compromise of strength, toughness, and thermal proper-ties was achieved in PC-based nanocomposites. Therefore, special attention to the influ-ence of nanofiller on the ESC resistance was given to PC. The ESC resistance of the materials was investigated under static loading with and without the presence of stress-cracking agents. Interestingly, the incorporation of nano-SiO2 greatly enhanced the ESC resistance of PC in all investigated fluids. This result was particularly evident with the smaller quantities and sizes of nano-SiO2. The enhancement in ESC resistance was more effective in mild agents and air, where the quality of the deformation process was vastly altered with the presence of nano-SiO2. This finding confirmed that the new structural arrangements on the molecular scale in-duced by nanoparticles dominate over the ESC agent absorption effect and result in greatly improving the ESC resistance of the materials. This effect was more pronounced with increasing molecular weight of PC due to an increase in craze stability and fibril density. The most important and new finding is that the ESC behavior of polymer-based nanocomposites/ stress-cracking agent combinations can be scaled using the Hansen solubility parameter. Thus allowed us to predict the risk of ESC as a function of the filler content for different stress-cracking agents without performing extensive tests. For a comparison of different amorphous polymer-based nanocomposites at a given nano-SiO2 particle content, the ESC resistance of materials improved in the following order: PMMA/SiO2 < PS/SiO2 < low molecular weight PC/SiO2 < high molecular weight PC/SiO2. In most cases, nanocomposites with 1 vol.% of nano-SiO2 particles exhibited the largest improvement in ESC resistance. However, the remarkable improvement in the ESC resistance—particularly in PC-based nanocomposites—created some challenges related to material characterization because testing times (failure time) significantly increased. Accordingly, the superposition ap-proach has been applied to construct a master curve of crack propagation model from the available short-term tests at different temperatures. Good agreement of the master curves with the experimental data revealed that the superposition approach is a suitable comparative method for predicting slow crack growth behavior, particularly for long-duration cracking tests as in mild agents. This methodology made it possible to mini-mize testing time. Additionally, modeling and simulations using the finite element method revealed that multi-field modeling could provide reasonable predictions for diffusion processes and their impact on fracture behavior in different stress cracking agents. This finding sug-gests that the implemented model may be a useful tool for quick screening and mitigat-ing the risk of ESC failures in plastic products.
Metadaten
Author:Jiraporn NomaiORCiD
URN:urn:nbn:de:hbz:386-kluedo-56351
Advisor:Schlarb Alois K.
Document Type:Doctoral Thesis
Language of publication:English
Date of Publication (online):2019/06/11
Date of first Publication:2019/06/11
Publishing Institution:Technische Universität Kaiserslautern
Granting Institution:Technische Universität Kaiserslautern
Acceptance Date of the Thesis:2019/05/22
Date of the Publication (Server):2019/06/18
Tag:Drug delivery systems; Environmental stress cracking resistance; Glassy polymers; Polymer nanocomposites; Structure-property relationships
GND Keyword:Polymers; Nanocomposites; Fracture behavior; Crack resistance
Page Number:XII, 136
Faculties / Organisational entities:Kaiserslautern - Fachbereich Maschinenbau und Verfahrenstechnik
DDC-Cassification:6 Technik, Medizin, angewandte Wissenschaften / 620 Ingenieurwissenschaften und Maschinenbau
Licence (German):Creative Commons 4.0 - Namensnennung, nicht kommerziell, keine Bearbeitung (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)