Optimization of mechanical properties of PP-polymer foam fabricated via extruder

Well-designed plastic foams, with respect to their cell density and cell size, open-or-close cells, and the cell uniformity, compared to their counterpart unfoamed plastic parts, beside of having the advantages of less material consumption, dimensional stability, better processability, and a higher surface quality, they can have superior mechanical and physical properties, including strength to weight, impact strength, thermal and dielectric properties. The temperature distribution in the different zones of the extruder, the qualities and quantities of the nanoparticle additives and their dispersion in the polymer matrix can have significant effect on the mechanical properties of the produced foams by the extruder.

In this study, using an extruder, MA-g-polypropylene microcellular foams, containing 3, 7 and 9 wt% of nano-clay particles, were produced under three temperature arrangements on the extruder and the material and the processing effects on the mechanical properties were investigated.  

The result of this investigation shows that adding of nanoclay improves the mechanical properties of MA-g-PP.s foams. As an example, the results show that the sample with 7 wt% of surface modified nanoclay, owns about 10% higher impact toughness compared to the samples produced without nanoclay. Also for the same samples a rise of about 5% was recorded in Young modulus. The microstructural studies of the produced foams by scanning electron microscope (SEM) show that adding of nanoclay can result on more foam uniformity and smaller cell size. In this study, the smallest average cell size (87.5 μm) and the lowest density (0.3 g/cm3) were recorded for a sample with 7wt% nanoclay.