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Alignment, Mechanical And Thermo-Physical Characterization Of Nanofiber-Reinforced Polyethylene, Veronica M. Diaz-Serrato

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

Alignment of vapor grown carbon nano-reinforced polyethylene composites was performed using conventional extrusion processing methods. The alignment of the nanofibers within polyethylene, PE; the matrix, produced a material with anisotropic behavior. Mechanical and thermo-physical properties of the nanocomposite were studied. Enhancements in mechanical properties were investigated for pure PE, misaligned, and aligned specimens for stress versus strain, maximum load, and Young's modulus as high as 185, 273, and 80%, respectively. In fact, toughness was considerably high for the 10 rpm specimen when compared to other samples of different windup speeds. Thermo-physical studies were performed using differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and …