Influence of the particle morphology on the micro-and macromechanlcs of nano-reinforced materials

This paper describes mechanical properties of polymer-clay nanocomposites with platelet and fibrous like nanoparticles evaluated on a of nano, meso and micro length scale. Platelet reinforced materials were found to display a mixed morphology consisting of intercalated und exfoliated regions. A better dispersion was obtained for fibrous clay nanocomposites where homogeneous distribution of single particles was achieved. The deformation behavior was investigated by in-situ XRD and SEM experiments during drawing; the macro-mechanical characteristics were extracted from tensile tests. The stiffness was found to increase in both platelet and fibrous clay nanocomposites. The presence of intercalated stacks in the latter resulted in a significant reduction in drawability, the better homogeneity of the fibrous clay systems allowed a reasonably high extensions.