Exploring the effect of radiation crosslinking on the physico‐mechanical, dynamic mechanical and dielectric properties of EOC–PDMS blends for cable insulation applications

Abstract

This work focuses on the effect of electron beam irradiation on the physico‐mechanical, dynamic mechanical and dielectric properties of blends based on ethylene octene copolymer (EOC) and poly dimethyl siloxane (PDMS) rubber. It is found that electron beam irradiation caused considerable improvement in the physico‐mechanical properties; the tensile strength was enhanced by nearly 35% for 70:30 EOC:PDMS blend. Phase morphology of the blends analyzed before irradiation by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) exhibited droplet/matrix morphology with sizes of the PDMS rubber domain varying from 0.55 µm to 0.47 µm as the amount of PDMS rubber decreased from 30 wt% to 10 wt%. This reduction in the PDMS rubber domain has been correlated with the physico‐mechanical properties of the blends. Further, the dynamic mechanical properties and creep behavior of these EOC:PDMS blends before and after irradiation has been studied. It is inferred that the 70:30 blend after radiation crosslinking shows a 17% decrease in the creep compliance, i.e. higher creep resistance compared to neat blends. All the radiation crosslinked blends exhibited lower dielectric constant, lower dielectric loss and higher electrical resistivity as compared to the virgin blends which makes it suitable for cable insulating application. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Effects of Electron Beam Irradiation on the Mechanical, Thermal, and Surface Properties of Some EPDM/Butyl Rubber Composites

“…The network structure by radiation crosslinking prevents the structural reorganization during applied force, leading to the decrease of the elongation at break. Also, the increase of crosslink density at higher irradiation doses determines the decrease of polymer chains mobility, and the elongation at break will be lower [22].…”

Improvement of mechanical and dielectric properties of ethylene–octene copolymer by multi‐walled carbon nanotubes functionalized with poly(2,2′‐bithiophene)

“…The reason for this effect is the conductivity difference between the fillers and EOC, whereas electric charges are accumulating in the interphase resulting in significant increase of ε '. At low filler contents up to 5 wt%, the ε ' values did not show dependence of frequency due to the predominant presence of EOC matrix, which showed ε ' typical to dielectric matrices . A notable increase at lower frequency range was observed with increase of filler loading up to 10 wt%.…”

“…c). The relaxation determined around 10°C for neat EOC presumed to be due to the side chain motion of the EOC . A notable shift toward higher temperature was noted with increase of filler loading due to formation of immobilized surface layers and increase in composite stiffness.…”

Radiation crosslinked Polyolefinic blends: exploring thermally tuned dual Shape Memory character

“…It has been found from the literature that for both EOC and EPDM, chances of polymeric chain scission is very less at low radiation doses (say up to 150 kGy). Polymeric chain scission takes place only at higher radiation doses . Therefore, in the present study, it can be assumed that in presence of electron beam (up to 100 kGy dose) there is only the chances of crosslink network formation in both the phases.…”