Talc Filled Thermoplastic Composites: Melt Rheological Properties

Abstract

The effects of composition and resulting morphology on the rheology of thermoplastics filled with different talc platelets were studied in the 0-22% range of volume fraction, Φ. The sufficiently filled polymer composites exhibit a rheological behavior which significantly differs from the pure polymers used in this work, a linear low density polyethylene, a low density polyethylene and a polyamide 12. The changes in the rheological behavior are influenced by the size, the concentration and the surface treatment of plate-like talc particles. They also depend on the chemical nature and viscous and elastic characteristics of the polymer matrix. In particular, the effect of platelet orientation on the viscoelastic properties of reinforced composites was pointed out. For sufficiently filled systems, a low frequency response indicative of a pseudo solid-like behavior is obtained only during the first frequency sweep. In fact, the low frequency storage modulus, G’, is constant. With repeated frequency sweeps, more platelets were aligned in the flow direction, thus the low frequency storage modulus gradually decreases and becomes dependent on frequency, ω. The low frequency complex viscosity η* also progressively decreases with repeated frequency sweeps. In addition, for these systems, the low shear viscosity η build up in an unbounded manner because of the existence of particle-particle interactions. There are stresses below which there is no flow indicating the existence of yield values. Steady shear elastic properties are also studied, especially in the case of systems showing an apparent yield stress.

Keywords

• rheology
• morphology
• talc filled thermoplastics
• platelet orientation
• critical volume fraction
• apparent yield stress