Mechanical properties of blends of liquid crystalline copolyesters with polyprophylene

Abstract

A significant effect of the addition of LCP on the mechanical properties and their anisotropy has been established. Already, if one considers the shape of curves of the stress-strain relationship it can be seen that curves typical for semicrystalline polymers (pure polypropylene) with clearly visible yield point and significant cold drawing leading to an anisotropic stiffening are changing into curves without yielding and with a brittle failure (LC-rich blends). Generally, the tensile elasticity modulus increases with increasing LCP content for both MD and TD. The maximum value of anisotropy of elastic properties was noted for a rather low content of LCP (c = 5%). On the contrary, the stress at yield decreases with increasing LCP content. The same was observed for the strain at yield but in both cases an important increase of anisotropy has taken place. Consequently, the total elongation during drawing (strain at break) showed a drastic decrease for blends with higher LCP content (about 60–80 times). The addition of the LCP to polypropylene has led to a stiffness increase (higher elasticity modulus) but simultaneously to a considerable plasticity decrease. As a confirmation of these observations, there served also the creep test where a decrease of the creep compliance (by two times) for LC-rich blends as compared with pure PP was noted.