Inorganic Particle Size and Content Effects on Tensile Strength of Polymer Composites

The influence of inorganic filler particle size and content on tensile strength of polymer composites was discussed in this paper. Based on an interfacial model between inclusion and matrix and the work by Turcsanyi et al., an expression of interfacial adhesion parameter B was proposed, and a new tensile strength equation considering particle diameter effect for polymer composites was derived. A polypropylene (PP) filled with diatomite was fabricated by means of a twin-screw extruder, and the tensile mechanical properties were measured at room temperature to identify the effects of the filler diameter and content on the tensile mechanical properties of these composites. It was found that the tensile strength of these composite systems decreased slightly with an increase of the filler diameter. This equation was initially verified by using these measured data of tensile strength of the PP/diatomite composites. The results show that the predictions were close to the measured data of tensile strength, and the maximum relative errors between them were within 10%.