Abstract
Surface mechanical properties of low-density polyethylene (LDPE) reinforced by carbon nanofibers (CNFs) up to 3% weight load were investigated using nanoindentation (NI). Surface preparation of the nanocomposite was thoroughly investigated and atomic force microscopy (AFM) was used to analyze the surface roughness of the polished surfaces. The dispersion of nanofillers in the LDPE matrix was examined using scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The effect of various penetration loads on the results and scattering of the data points was discussed. It was found by NI results that the addition of 3% weight CNF increased the elastic modulus of LDPE by 59% and its hardness up to 12%. The nano/micro-scale results were compared with macro-scale results obtained by the conventional tensile test as well as the theoretical results calculated by the Halpin-Tsai (HT) model. It was found that the modulus calculated by nanoindentation was twice that obtained by the conventional tensile test which was shown to be in excellent agreement with the HT model. Experimental results indicated that the addition of CNF to LDPE reduced its wear resistance property by reducing the hardness to modulus ratio. SEM micrographs of the semicrystalline microstructure of the CNF/LDPE nanocomposite along with the calculated NI imprints volume were examined to elaborate on how increasing the penetration depth resulted in a reduction of the coefficient of variation of the NI data/more statistically reliable data.
Highlights
Nanoindentation is a powerful non-destructive testing technique to evaluate the mechanical properties of materials such as elastic modulus, hardness and creep
scanning electron microscopy (SEM) micrographs for polished samples show no trace of carbon nanofibers (CNFs), indicating that all CNFs are covered by Low-density polyethylene (LDPE) during the grinding/polishing process (Figure 2a)
Our results revealed that the addition of CNFs to LDPE
Summary
Nanoindentation is a powerful non-destructive testing technique to evaluate the mechanical properties of materials such as elastic modulus, hardness and creep. Low-density polyethylene (LDPE), a thermoplastic polymer with low crystallinity and long chain branching, has attracted the attention of researchers as an excellent candidate owing to its excellent bubble stability and high melting strength [12]. It has a broad range of applications such as in automotive and aerospace industry as thermal blankets, radiation shielding, circuit boards, and insulation films [13,14,15]. Both the aforementioned studies were focused on the macro-level mechanical properties of CNF/CNT-reinforced LDPE using conventional tensile testing methods
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