Mechanical characterization of glass microballoon filled HDPE syntactic foams

Abstract

Mechanical behavior of glass microballoon (GMB) reinforced high density polyethylene (HDPE) matrix syntactic foams is investigated under tensile mode. GMB’s are blended in HDPE using brabender and subsequently compression molded to form the syntactic foam sheets. GMBs with true particle density 200 kg/m3 are varied by 0, 20, 40 and 60 vol. % in HDPE matrix. With increase in microballoon content modulus is increases while strength decreases. Syntactic foams present lower fracture strain as compared to neat HDPE. Compression molded neat HDPE exhibited higher modulus and lower strength as compared to injection molded samples. Micrography is performed using scanning electron microscope for all the tested samples