• Elastomers and Composites
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• v.49 no.1
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• pp.43-52
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• 2014

The effect of nanoclay (Cloisite 20A) on the self-adhesion behavior of uncured brominated-isobutylene-isoprene rubber (BIIR) has been studied. The dispersion state of nanoclay into the rubber matrix was examined by SEM, TEM and XRD analysis. The thermal degradation behavior of the filled and unfilled samples was examined by TGA and improvement in the thermal stability of the nanocomposites occurred based on the weight loss (%) measurements. Also, addition of nanoclay enhanced the cohesive strength of the material by reinforcement action thereby reducing the degree of molecular diffusion across the interface of butyl rubber. However, the average depth of penetration of the inter-diffused chains was still adequate to form entanglement on either side of the interface, and thus offered greater resistance to peeling, resulting in high tack strength measurements. The improvement in tack strength was only achieved at critical nanoclay loading above 8 phr. Contact angle measurement was also made to examine the surface characteristics. There was no significant interfacial property change by employing the nanoclay.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.3 no.1
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• pp.40-49
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• 1986

Crack, craze and void are common defects which may be found in the bulk of polymeric materials such as either themoplastics or thermosets. The healing phenomena, autohesion, of these defects are known to be a intrinsic material property of various polymeric materials. However, only a few experimental and theoretical investigations on crack, void and craze healing phenomena for various polymeric materials have been reported up to date [1, 2, 3]. This may be partly due to the complications of healing processes and lacking of appropriate theoretical developments. Recently, some investigators have been urged to study the healing phenomena of various polymenic materials since the significance of the use of polymer based alloys or composites has been raised in terms of specific strength and energy saving. In the earlier published reports [1, 2, 3, 4], the crack and void healing velocity, healing toughness and some other healing mechanical and physical properties were measured experimentally and compared with predicted values by utilizing a simple model such as the reptation model under some resonable assumptions. It seems, however, that the general acceptance of the proposed modeling analyses is yet open question. The crack healing processes seem to be complicate and highly dependent on the state of virgin material in terms of mechanical and physical properties. Furthermore, it is also strongly dependent on the histories of crack, craze and void development including fracture suface morphology, the shape of void and the degree of disentanglement of fibril in the craze. The rate of crack healing may be a function of environmental factors such as healing temperature, time and pressure which gives different contact configurations between two separated surfaces. It seems to be reasonable to assume that the crack healing processes may be divided in several distinguished steps like stress relaxation with molecular chain arrangement, surface contact (wetting), inter- diffusion process and com;oete healing (to obtain the original strength). In this context, it is likely that we no longer have to accept the limitation of cumulative damage theories and fatigue life if it is probable to remove the defects such as crack, craze and void and to restore the original strength of polymers or polymer based compowites by suitable choice of healing histories and methods. In this paper, we wish to present a very simple and intuitive theoretical model for the prediction of healed fracture toughness of cracked or defective polymeric components. The central idea of this investigation, thus, may be the modeling of behavior of chain molecules under healing conditions including the effects of chain scission on the healing processes. The validity of this proposed model will be studied by making comparisons between theoretically predicted values and experimentally determined results in near future and will be reported elsewhere.