| Abstract: | Electrically and thermally conductive resins can be produced by adding conductive fillers to insulating polymers. Mechanical properties such as tensile modulus, ultimate tensile stress, strain at ultimate tensile stress, and notched Izod impact strength are also important and cannot be ignored. This study focused on performing compounding runs, followed by injection molding and evaluation of tensile and impact properties of carbon filled nylon‐6,6 based resins. The three carbon fillers investigated include an electrically conductive carbon black, synthetic graphite particles, and a surface treated polyacrylonitrile (PAN) based carbon fiber. Resins containing varying amounts of these single carbon fillers were produced and tested. In addition, combinations of fillers were investigated by conducting a full 23 factorial design and a complete replicate. The addition of carbon fiber increased the composite tensile modulus, ultimate tensile stress, and impact strength. Also, in many cases, combining two or three different fillers caused a statistically significant effect at a 95% confidence level. When comparing the results of this study with prior work, it appears that increased heteroatoms present on the carbon fiber surface likely improve composite ultimate tensile stress and impact strength. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 91: 2881–2893, 2004 |
