Many efforts have been made to obtain uniform cell structures from foam injection molding techniques. However, cell nucleation mechanism and complex dynamics during the cell formation have rarely been well understood. Here, high‐pressure foam injection molding (HPFIM) is achieved by combining the injection–compression molding with core back foaming (ICMCBF) technique. The influences of compression pressure and time on the cell structure of polystyrene foam during the foaming process are studied. Compared with low pressure for conventional foam injection molding, high compression pressure (200 bar) and fast pressure drop rate of ICMCBF endow the foam with the highest cell density (1.59 × 107 cells cm?3), and the smallest cell size (15 µm). The tensile strength and impact strength are enhanced by about 60% (from 22.3 to 35.6 MPa) and 80% (from 3.6 to 6.8 MPa), respectively. This study gives a critical understanding of the cell nucleation and growth mechanism of the foam injection molding and supplies a new strategy for the fabrication of foam with uniform cell structure. 相似文献
Intercalated and exfoliated polystyrene/nano‐clay composites were prepared by mechanical blending and in situ polymerization respectively. The composites were then foamed by using CO2 as the foaming agent in an extrusion foaming process. The resulting foam structure is compared with that of pure polystyrene and polystyrene/talc composite. At a screw rotation speed of 10 rpm and a die temperature of 200°C, the addition of a small amount (i.e., 5 wt%) of intercalated nano‐clay greatly reduces cell size from 25.3 to 11.1 μm and increases cell density from 2.7 × 107 to 2.8 × 108 cells/cm3. Once exfoliated, the nanocomposite exhibits the highest cell density (1.5 × 109 cells/cm3) and smallest cell size (4.9 μm) at the same particle concentration. Compared with polystyrene foams, the nanocomposite foams exhibit higher tensile modulus, improved fire retardance, and better barrier property. Combining nanocomposites and the extrusion foaming process provides a new technique for the design and control of cell structure in microcellular foams. 相似文献
Thermoplastic polyamide elastomer (TPAE) is a kind of high-performance elastomers prepared from nylon hard segments and polyether or polyester soft segments. The hard segments endow TPAE with excellent mechanical properties, while the soft segments provide the desired elasticity. Therefore, the development of TPAE as a high-performance foam material has broad application prospects. In this work, ethylene-vinyl acetate copolymer/polyamide-1012 elastomer (EVA/TPAE1012) composite materials with different compositions were prepared, using ethylene-vinyl acetate /maleic anhydride graft copolymer (EVA-g-MAH) as compatibilizer. Then, EVA/TPAE foamed materials were fabricated by chemical foaming method and batch foaming process, with azodicarbonamide as blowing agent. The resulting composite foams were tested in terms of density, cell properties hardness, resilience, compression recovery, and mechanical strength. The EVA/TPAE1012 foam has a low density (0.14 g cm−3), small cell size (approximately 62.1 μm), and a high cell density (3.08 × 107 cells cm−3). Compared with pure EVA foam, the composite foam not only has an increase in specific strength, resilience and tearing strength, but also has good toughness, which greatly improves the resulting foams' expansion ratio and elongation at break. 相似文献
In this paper, a study on the batch processing and characterization of microcellular foamed high-density polyethylene (HDPE/iPP) blends is reported. A microcellular plastic is a foamed polymer with a cell density greater than 109 cells/cm3 and fully grown cells smaller than 10 µm. Recent studies have shown that the morphology and crystallinity of semicrystalline polymers have a great influence on the solubility and diffusivity of the blowing agent and on the cellular structure of the resulting foam in microcellular batch processing. In this research, blends of HDPE and iPP were used to produce materials with variety of crystalline and phase morphologies to enhance the subsequent microcellular foaming. It was possible to produce much finer and more uniform foams with the blends than with neat HDPE and iPP. Moreover, the mechanical properties and in particular the impact strength of the blends were significantly improved by foaming. 相似文献
Summary: Via a batch process in an autoclave, foam processing of intercalated PC/clay nanocomposites, having different amounts of clay, has been conducted using supercritical CO2 as a foaming agent. The cellular structures obtained from various foaming temperature‐CO2 pressure ranges were investigated by SEM. The incorporation with nanoclay‐induced heterogeneous nucleation occurs because of a lower activation energy barrier compared with homogeneous nucleation as revealed by the characterization of the interfacial tension between bubble and matrix. The controlled structure of the PCCN foams changed from microcellular (d ? 20 µm and Nc ? 1.0 × 109 cells · cm?3) to nanocellular (d ? 600 nm and Nc ? 3.0 × 1013 cells · cm?3). The mechanical properties of PCCN foams under compression test were discussed.
TEM micrograph for the structure of the cell wall foamed at 160 °C. 相似文献
In this study, Ti2AlC foams were fabricated by direct foaming and gel‐casting using agarose as gelling agent. Slurry viscosity, determined by the agarose content (at a fixed solids loading), as well as surfactant concentration and foaming time were the key parameters employed for controlling the foaming yield, and hence the foam porosity after sintering process. Fabricated foams having total porosity in the 62.5‐84.4 vol% range were systematically characterized to determine their pore size and morphology. The effect of the foam porosity on the room‐temperature compression strength and elastic modulus was also determined. Depending on the amount of porosity, the compression strength and Young's modulus were found to be in the range of 9‐91 MPa and 7‐52 GPa, respectively. Permeability to air flow at temperatures up to 700°C was investigated. Darcian (k1) and non‐Darcian (k2) permeability coefficients displayed values in the range 0.30‐93.44 × 10?11 m2 and 0.39‐345.54 × 10?7 m, respectively. The amount of porosity is therefore a very useful microstructural parameter for tuning the mechanical and fluid dynamic properties of Ti2AlC foams. 相似文献
Foamed materials play an important role in a lightweight design. Foam injection molding (FIM) is an advanced and convenient way to fabricate lightweight structural materials. Recently, a new foam injection molding machine is developed, which only needs ultra-low gas pressure to fabricate microcellular foam. As a universal plastic, polypropylene (PP) is widely used due to its good mechanical properties. But after foaming, the toughness of the PP tends to decrease. Herein, a lightweight and high-impact polypropylene foam is fabricated via the new FIM technology with an ultra-low nitrogen pressure of 6.5 MPa. PP/polyolefin elastomer (POE) foam with a tiny cell size of 4.13 µm and high cell density of 2.7 × 109 cm−3 is successfully obtained. Owing to the superior cellular structure, compared with the pure PP foam, after adding the POE component, the maximum impact performance is increased by 465%. In this work, an easy-to-industrialized method for preparing lightweight and high-impact injection-molded PP foams are presented. 相似文献
Microcellular foams in polypropylene containing rubber particles were produced in an injection molding process. The foams are generated because of the thermodynamic instability and are controlled by formation process. The effect of processing parameters on microcellular foaming was investigated in the injection molding process. Injection speed and pressure are less important factors but packing pressure plays an important role in controlling the foam density. A critical packing pressure, about 5 × 106 Pa, was found to generate microcellular foams in our polypropylene material system. Rubber particles inside the polypropylene seem to stabilize the microcellular foams. 相似文献
This study presents a self-designed foaming apparatus and routes to manufacture foamed isotactic polypropylene (iPP) blends with uniform and dense cells, using styrene-ethylene-butadiene-styrene (SEBS) block copolymer as toughening additive. The addition of SEBS can clearly enhance the impact strength of solid iPP, iPP blends with a 20 wt% SEBS has obtained high notched impact strength of 75 kJ/m2, which is ca. 16 times larger than that of neat iPP. Relatively fine microcellular iPP-SEBS foams with the average cell size of several micrometers, and the cell density of 109 cells/cm3 were fabricated using a batch foaming procedure. Moreover, using our self-designed mold and compression foaming method, iPP-SEBS foams with balanced mechanical properties were produced. With the increasing of SEBS, tensile strength and flexural strength were slightly decreased, but the impact strength was increased clearly. The balanced mechanical properties between stiffness and toughness were achieved after compression foaming. 相似文献