Izod Impact Energy Research Articles

Effect of Rubber Content in Acrylonitrile–Butadiene–Styrene and Additional Rubber on The Polymer Blends of Polycarbonate and Acrylonitrile–Butadiene–Styrene

Higher ABS rubber content in the polycarbonate (PC)/acrynitrile–butadiene–styrene (ABS) blend resulted in toughness improvement in terms of tensile, Izod impact and strain energy release rate at a cost of higher melt viscosity. The extra-added core-shell rubber particles with poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) or acrylonitrile–styrene (SAN) outer shell resided mainly in the ABS phase and further improved the resulted blends toughness. The addition of styrene–maleic anhydride (SMA) copolymer in the PC/ABS blends caused severe coagulation of the rubber particles in the ABS phase and left a greater fraction of the SAN phase without presence of rubber. The toughness improvement by increasing rubber content must be compensated by the increase of melt viscosity and this fact has to be taken into consideration in selecting the starting materials of the PC/ABS blends.

Izod impact testing of carbon-fibre-reinforced plastics

The Izod impact energy of CFRP has been studied as a function of fibre volume loading and surface treatment, and specimen and notch geometry. The energy is found to increase with fibre volume and to be greater for type 2 fibre composite than for type 1, and for untreated fibre. There is a mild notch sensitivity, but the impact energy is independent of the notch-tip radius. For a constant depth, d, the impact energy is directly proportional to the breadth, b, while for a constant b it increases as approximately d 2. An attempt to account for the results on the basis of the strain energy stored at failure and fibre pull out is only partially successful.