Fracture of an epoxy polymer containing recycled elastomeric particles

Abstract

The fracture behavior of elastomer-modified epoxy was investigated using compact-tension geometry. The elastomeric modifiers included a liquid carboxyl-terminated butadiene acrylonitrile and solid rubber particles of different sizes which were obtained from recycled automobile tires. When used with solid rubber alone, no significant improvement in the fracture toughness was observed. However, when used in combination with the liquid rubber modifier, it was observed that the fracture toughness of these hybrid epoxies was higher than that of those toughened with liquid rubber alone. This synergistic effect is explained in terms of crack deflection and localized shear yielding. Furthermore, we observed a slight improvement in the fracture toughness as the size of the solid rubber particles increased. Although using a combination of both reactive rubber liquids and solid rubber particles as toughening agents had been investigated previously, in this study, the solid rubber particles used were from recycled rubber tires. Therefore, we have clearly demonstrated an application of producing high-quality engineering epoxy systems using toughening modifiers that are relatively low in cost and created higher-value products for recycled solid rubber. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 66: 271–277, 1997