• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 2010.05a
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• pp.1189-1190
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• 2010

• Korea-Australia Rheology Journal
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.153-160
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• 2004

Open microcellular foams having small-sized cell and good mechanical properties are desirable for many practical applications. As an effort to reduce the cell size, the microcellular foams combining viscosity improvers into the conventional formulation of styrene and water system were prepared via high internal phase emulsion polymerization. Since the material properties of foam are closely related to the solution properties of emulsion state before polymerization, the flow behavior of emulsions was investigated using a controlled stress rheometer. The yield stress and the storage modulus increased as viscosity improver concentration and agitation speed increased, due to the reduced cell size reflecting both a competition between the continuous phase viscosity and the viscosity ratio and an increase of shear force. Appreciable tendency was found between the rheological data of emulsions and the cell sizes of polymerized foams. Cell size reduction with the concentration of viscosity improver could be explained by the relation between capillary number and viscosity ratio. A correlative study for the cell size reduction with agitation speed was also attempted and the result was in a good accordance with the hydrodynamic theory.

• Korea-Australia Rheology Journal
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.183-189
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• 2006

High internal phase emulsions are highly concentrated emulsion systems consisting of a large volume of dispersed phase above 0.74. The rheological properties of high internal phase water-in-oil emulsions were measured conducting steady shear, oscillatory shear and creep/recovery experiments. It was found that the yield stress is inversely proportional to the drop size with the exponent of values between 1 and 2. Since the oil phase contains monomeric species, microcellular foams can easily be prepared from high internal phase emulsions. In this study, the microcellular foams combining a couple of thickeners into the conventional formulation of styrene and water system were investigated to understand the effect of viscosity ratio on cell size. Cell size variation on thickener concentration could be explained by a dimensional analysis between the capillary number and the viscosity ratio. Compression properties of foam are important end use properties in many practical applications. Crush strength and Young's modulus of microcellular foams polymerized from high internal phase emulsions were measured and compared from compression tests. Of the foams tested in this study, the foam prepared from the organoclay having reactive group as an oil phase thickener showed outstanding compression properties.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 2009.06a
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• pp.223-224
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• 2009

• Macromolecular Research
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.104-109
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• 2003

A microcellular, which combines a rubber with the conventional formulation of styrene/divinylbenzene/sorbitan monooleate/water system, was prepared using high internal phase emulsion (HIPE) polymerization. Although the open microcellular foam with low density from the conventional HIPE polymerization shows highly porous characteristics with fine, regular and isotropic structure, the one having much smaller cell size is desirable for various applications. In this study, a polybutadiene was introduced to reduce the cell size with comparable properties. Major interests were focused on the effects of rubber concentration and agitation speed on the cell sizes and compression properties. Scanning electron microscopy was used to observe the microcellular morphology and compression tests were conducted to evaluate the stress-strain behaviors. It was found that the cell size decreased as rubber concentration increased, reflecting a competition between the higher viscosity of continuous phase and the lower viscosity ratio of dispersed to continuous phases due to the addition of high molecular weight rubber into the oil phase of emulsion. A correlation for the average cell size depending on agitation speed was attempted and the result was quite satisfactory.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 2005.06a
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• pp.1367-1370
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• 2005

Microcellular foam processing of polymers requires a nucleated cell density greater than $10^9\;cells/cm^3$ so that the fully grown cells are smaller than 10 mm. A microcellular foam can be developed by first saturating a polymer sample with a volatile blowing agent, followed by rapidly decreasing its solubility in the polymer. In general, the cellular structure of crystalline polymer foams is difficult to control, compared to that of amorphous polymer foams. Since the gas does not dissolved in the crystallites, the polymer/gas solution formed during the microcellular processing is nonuniform. Moreover, the bubble nucleation is nonhomogeneous because of the heterogeneous nature of the crystalline polymer. In this paper, the effects of the crystallinity and morphology of crystalline polymers on the microcellular foam processing and on reflectivity of products are investigated. First, polymer specimens with various morphology and amount of solved blowing agent were prepared by varying the saturation pressure, saturation time and foaming condition. Then, cell morphologies according to several conditions were studied. The specimens with differing gas amount of solved and morphologies were foamed and their cellular structures were compared. The experimental results of reflectivity are compared to raw specimen and another specimen of different experimental conditions. After the experiments, recognize whether how reflectivity changes according to solved gas amount. And the effect of cell density and cell size on reflectivity is studied

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2005.11a
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• pp.124.1-124.1
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• 2005

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 2012.10a
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• pp.725-726
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• 2012

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 2007.06a
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• pp.423-424
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• 2007

• Polymer(Korea)
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• v.26 no.6
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• pp.759-766
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• 2002

Regular, spherical and isotropic open-microcellular foams having low density were prepared by the high internal phase emulsion (HIPE) polymerization mainly composed of styrene monomer and water The effects of Polymerization conditions. such as the content of water, divinylbenzene as a crosslinking agent and dodecane as a chain transfer agent, were investigated based on the tell size and foam properties. The microstructural morphology was observed using scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and the compression modulus of the foam was evaluated using compression test. The dropwise feeding of the aqueous phase into the oil phase was more effective than the batch feeding in producing the uniform and stable foam. Agitation speed and surfactant strongly influenced on the cell size and the window size between water droplets. Introduction of chain transfer agent increased the cell size, whereas it decreased the window size. Compression modulus increased with the crosslinking agent, but decreased with the chain transfer agent.