Experimental analysis of impact strength, tensile strength and elastic modulus of polyamide 6 / polyolefin elastomer / carbon nanotubes / carbon nanotubes

In this research, the mechanical properties of polyamide 6/polyolefin elastomer (PA6/POE) blends reinforced with carbon nanotubes have been studied. Nanocomposites consisted of 10 and 20 wt% polyolefin elastomer, 0, 1, 2 and 3 wt% carbon nanotubes (MWCNT) and 5 and 10 wt% maleic anhydride (POE-gMA as compatiblizing agent) were made by an internal mixer based on the full factorial design of experiment. Tensile and impact tests were performed to extract mechanical properties including tensile strength, elastic modulus and impact strength. Scanning electron microscope (SEM) were used to observe the dispersion and distribution quality of MWCNT in the matrix. SEM images showed an acceptable distribution of carbon nanotubes up to 2 wt% in both polyamide matrices with 10 and 20 wt%, while adding 3 wt% of nanotubes in both matrices was associated with nanotubes accumulation. The test results showed that the addition of 2 wt% of carbon nanotubes improved the tensile strength and elastic modulus of the compounds by %21 and %23, respectively. the surfaces extracted from full factorial design method showed that there are no notable interaction between the input parameters in the case of mechanical properties. Finally, the R-squared above %92 for all mechanical properties showed that there is a good agreement between the experimental results and the extracted regression models.