Browsing by Author "Menon, A. R."
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- Experimental Results for the Rheological and Rheo-Optical Behavior of Poly(ethylene terephthalate)/ Liquid-Crystalline Polymer BlendsPublication . Cidade, M. T.; Menon, A. R.; Leal, Catarina R.; Pillai, C. K. S.The use of thermoplastic/liquid-crystalline polymer (LCP) blends is recognized as a good strategy for reducing viscosity and improving mechanical properties relative to pure thermoplastics. This improvement, how ever, is only noticeable if the LCP fibrillates, in situ, during processing and the fibrils are kept in the solid state. In this article, we report a morphological, rheological, and rheo optics study performed with two blends of poly(ethylene terephthalate) with a LCP, Rodrun LC3000 (10 and 25 wt % LCP content), and we show that the obtained droplet shape relaxation time (the time the deformed droplet took to regain its spherical form after the cessation of flow) allowed for the explanation of the morphological observa tions. In fact, the droplet-shape relaxation time was higher for the blend with higher LCP content, for the higher experimentally accessible shear rates, and still increased at the highest shear rate, which explained the fibrils of the LCP dispersed phase observed in this blend, whereas for the lower LCP content blend, the droplet-shape relaxation time reached a low-value plateau for higher shear rates, which explained the absence of fibrillation in this blend.
- Optimisation of rodrun LC3000/PP compatibilised blends: influence of the compatibiliser and LCP contents on the rheological, morphological and mechanical propertiesPublication . Filipe, S.; Maia, J. M.; Leal, Catarina R.; Menon, A. R.; Duarte, A.; Cidade, M. T.The present study focuses on the optimisation of LCP/TP compatibilised systems. This study was essentially devoted to the influence of different LCP and compatibiliser contents on the final morphological, rheological and mechanical properties of the blends. Rheologically, we used both standard small amplitude oscillatory shear and large amplitude oscillatory shear (LAOS) experiments in order to improve the understanding of the mechanisms behind the mechanical reinforcement that might be helpful in the optimisation of liquid crystalline polymer and thermoplastic blends: The results revealed that LAOS, in particular, is highly sensitive to diferente morphologies and may be correlated with the effectiveness of compatibilisers, which is not surprising since the flow behaviour of LCP sis highly complex and non-linear, with lower non-linear characters obtained for those blends that showed a higher fibrilar formation and better mechanical properties.