Rubber toughening of glass fiber reinforced nylon‐6,6 with functionalized block copolymer SEBS‐g‐MA

Abstract

ABSTRACT:The toughening of glass fiber reinforced nylon-6,6 (PA-6,6) by using the functionalized triblock copolymer styrene-(ethylene-co-butylene)-styrene, grafted with maleic anhydride (SEBS-g-MA) was examined. Blends containing 2.5, 5, 7.5, 10, and 12.5 wt% copolymer were prepared by melt blending in a single-screw extruder. Emphasis was given to the study of mechanical properties in comparison with morphology and thermal properties of the aforementioned samples. Although the amount of SEBS-g-MA that was added in PA-6,6 was not enough to produce a super-tough material, a significant increase in the resistance to crack propagation and impact strength was observed in all blends. This behavior was proportional to the amount of SEBS-g-MA that was added for samples having up to 10%, rubber, while additional amounts seem to have no further effect. A small decrease in tensile strength was also observed. From FTIR spectroscopy and DSC analysis it was shown that the grafting extent of SEBS-g-MA to PA-6,6 was very low.

Taguchi analysis of extrusion variables and composition effects on the morphology and mechanical properties of EPR-g-MA toughened polyamide 6 and its composite with short glass fiber

“…10(d), that the rubber particle size in the presence of glass fiber increases by increasing the rubber content, particularly at higher rubber loading. Similar observation has been reported for PA66/SEBS-g-MA/GF system by Karayannidis et al [17] who attributed such behavior to the incomplete mixing of the compound in the extruder caused by dramatic increase of the viscosity due to both the presence of glass fiber and grafting reaction at the interface of polyamide-rubber and polymer-fiber.…”

“…It can be seen that the impact resistance of the composite steadily increases by increasing the rubber content which is somewhat different behavior observed for the unreinforced rubber-toughed PA6 showing a drastic increase in toughness within 15-20 wt.% rubber content. Indeed, the uniform increase in toughness of the glass reinforced rubber-toughened polyamide with rubber content has been frequently reported in the literature as well [17,20]. However, such behavior can be attributed to morphology of the system in terms of the rubber particle size, as discussed above for the unreinforced system.…”

“…The good polymer matrix adhesion observed for the PEG16 could be attributed to high ratio of rubber to fiber content and high processing temperature. Effect of functionalized rubber on the polymer-fiber interaction has been reported extensively in literature [17,21,44]. Moreover, the role of temperature on enhancing the interfacial adhesion was also evidenced above.…”

“…In order to obtain a balance of stiffness, strength and toughness, glass fibers (GF) are sometimes added to PA/rubber blends [17][18][19][20][21][22]. It is well established that the mechanical properties of a short fiber reinforced plastic depends on fiber length, fiber content and fiber-polymer adhesion.…”

“…The open literature shows a great deal of publications, investigating the morphological, physical and mechanical characteristics of both PA/elastomer two-phase blend [23,24,4,5,[25][26][27] and PA/rubber/GF ternary hybrid composites [17][18][19][20][21][22], with a focus on the compositional effects of such multi-component systems. However, the processing conditions for such compounds have been seldom reported in literature.…”