Stereoscopic analyses of surfaces on polystyrene foam

Abstract

Analysis of surface finishes on machined polystyrene foam presents a unique challenge when the cell size of the foam is of the order of or larger than desired surface finishes. Ideally, the surface could be defined as the geometric surface formed by the locus of the severed edges of the cell walls. However, both machining and grinding tend to rip and fracture cell walls and leave asperities formed by agglomerations of fragmented cell walls. Machined geometric surfaces can be defined as the locus of the tips of the asperities, but the surface in between asperities can extend several cell layers below the asperities. The severe nature of this problem is emphasized by stereoscopic examinations of fractured, machined and ground, and cryo-vibratomed polystyrene surfaces in the SEM.Since coating does not seriously distort low-density polystyrene foam, the specimens were gold-palladium coated for examination in a Hitachi S-800 FESEM at 5 kV. Stereo pairs were obtained using tilts of + and − 3 1/2 degrees. The polystyrene foam had a cell size that varied between 2 to 11 μm.