Relating microhardness to morphology in styrene/butadiene block copolymer/polystyrene blends

The microhardness behaviour of binary blends comprising a styrene/butadiene star block copolymer and polystyrene homopolymer (hPS) over a wide composition range is investigated. In particular, the interrelation between the morphology, tensile properties (such as yield stress σ_Y and the Young's modulus, E) and the microhardness H is explored. As in the case of microphase separated block copolymers and binary block copolymer blends, as reported in preceding publications, a clear deviation in the microhardness behaviour from the additivity law is observed. The lamellar block copolymer system is compared with the nanostructure of semicrystalline polymers having a lamellar morphology. A dependence of H upon PS lamellar thickness is found. For the samples with lamellar morphology the hardness value was found to correlate with the mechanical parameters obtained by uni-axial tensile testing according to: H/σ_Y∼2.2 and E/H∼22.