Effect of Thermal Aging on Mechanical Properties and Color Difference of Glass Fiber/Polyetherimide (GF/PEI) Composites

Abstract

This research study is aimed at evaluating the mechanical characteristics in terms of tensile strength and flexural strength of glass fiber reinforced Polyetherimide (GF/PEI) under different thermal aging. Tensile testing and bending testing were performed on the thermally aged polyetherimide composites. The mechanical properties of the thermally aged samples were also correlated with their color difference. The experimental results showed that both the tensile strength and flexural strength of the GF/PEI composite samples decreased with increasing aging temperature. However, the elastic modulus of the composite samples is nearly independent on the thermal aging. The thermally aged samples exhibited brittle fracture, resulting in low strength and low ductility. The loss in strength after thermal aging could be also linked to the change of their color difference, which can indirectly reflect the change of the strength for the composites after thermal aging.

Optimization of Cellulose Nanofiber Loading and Processing Conditions during Melt Extrusion of Poly(3-hydroxybutyrate-co-3-hydroxyhexanoate) Bionanocomposites

“…Flexural modulus decreased with the increase in processing temperature from 155 to 175 °C, which is similar to the results of tensile and flexural strength. As aforementioned, fabricating bionanocomposites at high processing temperature leads to polymer degradation due to random chain scission, resulting in brittleness of the bionanocomposites [ 32 , 33 ]. Since the polymer molecular weight substantially decreases at temperatures above 155 °C, processing at those temperatures seems unsuitable.…”

Experimental study of the degradation of HDPE packaging under accelerated thermal aging

“…The increase in temperature causes several phenomena such as oxidation, pyrolysis, thermolysis, mechanical creep, and chemical attack (Li, et al, 2021). Thermal aging is a process that can affect the safety, quality, and stability of packaged products either in storage or transport, so it is necessary to study and understand the mechanisms of degradation of physical and chemical properties, for this reason, the literature has proposed several kinds of research to study the behavior of different polymers under thermal aging, YOUN SONG has noticed the correlation between the change of color of Polyetherimide reinforced with glass fibers with the change of mechanical properties in traction and flexion under different thermal aging (Song, et al, 2021). Another approach was extrapolated from the thermal aging experiments with UV radiation of propylene-ethylene rubber (EPM), the results were shown the difficulty of observing chemical degradation for this type of aging (Gillen & Celina, 2018), the study of Tcharkhtchi et al was focused on the effect of thermal aging on the mechanical properties of Polyurethane, it was shown that there are two characteristic periods where the mechanical properties change (Tcharkhtchi et al, 2014).…”