DESIGN AND PROCESSING OF HIGH-PERFORMANCE ARCHITECTED POLYMER BLENDS
Abstract
Blending polymers can be an efficient approach for creating new composites with desired properties gleaned from their components. Most polymers are immiscible and will segregate into material domains with weak interfaces during melt processing. This can lead to poor failure properties, e.g., where the toughness is smaller than that of the components. The proposed research will investigate architected blends as a new approach to engineer materials with superior modulus, strength, and toughness. It is hypothesized that high-performance blends can be achieved using multi-component melt streams and novel shape multiplying elements (SMEs) that can cut, stretch, and shape the flow to create architectures that control orientation and induce crystalline structures optimized for strength and toughness. This project will specifically focus on liquid crystalline polymer-polyamide (LCP-PA) blends as the model material system. LCPs (aromatic copolyesters) can form elongated stiff and strong fibrils under appropriate processing conditions and have been used to reinforce PA and other thermoplastics. Research tasks include the modeling and stabilization of multi-layer flows in layer multiplying elements, melt processing development, SME optimization, material characterization to ultimately solve the inverse problem of determining the SME generators by which the desired architected structure and properties may be achieved. The outcomes will be fundamental understanding of the effects of local processing states on the structure and properties of architected blends, and validated computational tools to design more complex SMEs and 2D architected blends.
Document Details
- Document Type
- DoD Grant Award
- Publication Date
- Mar 07, 2023
- Source ID
- FA95502210222
Entities
People
- Thao D. Nguyen
Organizations
- Air Force Office of Scientific Research
- Johns Hopkins University
- United States Air Force