Abstract
AbstractA detailed investigation has been performed to relate the environmental stress cracking (ESC) behaviour of thermoplastic toughened phenolic materials to their morphology. Within the range of added thermoplastic studied (0 to 35%), two scales of morphology were seen to occur. In addition to a small scale interpenetrating network, there exists a larger scale morphology formed from “seas” of excess and immiscible thermoplastic. The large scale morphology was studied by performing interference contrast optical microscopy on samples etched with permanganate. A good correlation was obtained between the amount of thermoplastic in the immiscible regions and the overall fraction of thermoplastic in the sample.Etched samples were subject to ESC via bend tests in methanol and the effects of the morphology on the crack behaviour were observed microscopically while samples were still in the bent condition. It was evident that the large scale morphology was responsible for deflecting microcracks so that they preferentially grew along the interface between the immiscible thermoplastic and well mixed regions.
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