PSI - Issue 13

Dani Abdo et al. / Procedia Structural Integrity 13 (2018) 511–516 D.Abdo et al. / Structural Integrity Procedia 00 (2018) 000 – 000

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1. Introduction

To avoid synthesizing new materials and investing into expensive polymerization equipment, polymer blending has become more attractive over the years. Blending of two polymers provides a simple and cost-effective method to obtain new materials with enhanced properties without losing the material’s o riginal advantages. Poly-butylene terephthalate (PBT), a linear aromatic polyester with high-performance semi-crystalline resin, is one of the most versatile engineering thermoplastics. It has high mechanical strength, excellent processing characteristics and outstanding electrical properties, making it applicable for a broad range of products. To increase the strength, modulus and toughness of the matrix, short glass fibers are added to PBT. This composite, short-fiber reinforced PBT (SFR PBT), is widely used in industry, and its characteristics and behavior are well studied by the academic community. But SFR PBT has a few limitations. One of most important disadvantages is its low impact strength. Thermoplastic polyester elastomer (TPEE), a new member in the thermoplastic-elastomer (TPE) family, has recently attracted much attention. It was proven to be one of the TPEs, suitable for blending with PBT. Its hard segments are crystalline polyesters like these of PBT (Kalfoglou et al., 1977). Research was recently focusing on the effect of TPEE on impact strength of SFR PBT. For instance, Verma et al. (2008) observed significant improvement in the impact toughness of PBT/TPE blends. But the reported work concerning the effect of TPEE on the microstructure and fracture behavior of SFR PBT is still very limited. Generally, indications of ductility or brittleness on a fracture surface may give a good idea of the mode of fracture and the material’s mechanical properties. For instance, t he ductile area, observed on fracture surfaces of PA66-GF35 specimens failed under fatigue loading, was reported to be larger than that for specimens tested under static loading (Horst and Spoormaker, 1997). Other studies showed the effect of TPE on tensile and impact strength of PBT; with increasing TPE content impact strength increased, and tensile strength decreased as reported by Verma et al. (2008). The effect of loading rate on the microstructure of impact-modified PBT and the impact on various mechanical properties has not been considered to date. In this paper, specimens of PBT-GF10 (10% glass fibers) and PBT-GF10 blended with 10% TPEE are tested to failure in tension at different loading rates. The morphology of fracture surfaces is studied for different loading rates to assess the effect of TPEE on the microstructure and damage mechanism of PBT-GF10. Material performance of these materials will be discussed in detail in further publications.

2. Experimental details 2.1. Materials

Two materials were studied:  a commercially available short-fiber-reinforced PBT containing 10 wt. % of glass fibers (designation: PBT GF10);  a commercially available short-fiber-reinforced PBT with 10 wt. % of glass fibers and 10%vol. TPEE (designation: PBT-GF10 TPEE)

Fig. 1. ISO 527 dogbone specimen. (all dimensions are in mm)