Mechanical and Morphological Properties of Wood Plastic Biocomposites Prepared from Toughened Poly（lactic acid） and Rubber Wood Sawdust （Hevea brasiliensis）

The present research aims to utilize the acrylic Core-Shell Rubber （CSR） particles to reduce the brittleness in Wood Plastic Composites （WPC） prepared from poly（lactic acid） （PLA） and rubber wood sawdust （Hevea brasiliensis）. Experimental works consisted of two major parts. The first part concentrated on toughening PLA by using CSR particles. Mechanical tests revealed that PLA had become tougher with a more than five times increment in the impact strength when the CSR was added at only 5 wt%. The modified PLA was less stiff with the significant reductions of both elastic and flexural moduli and strengths. The second part focused on producing WPC from the toughened PLA and rubber wood sawdust. The tensile moduli and the strengths of the PLA composites increased with rubber wood content. The composites turned out to be more brittle with reductions of both the impact strength and the tensile elongation at break at all the sawdust contents. Toughening PLA/wood flour with 5 wt% CSR improved both the impact strength and the tensile elongation at break. The toughness enhancement was also depicted by the plastic deformation observed on the surfaces of fractured PLA/CSR/wood sawdust composites.

Fatigue Crack Propagation Behavior of Rubber-toughened Epoxy Resin

Fatigue crack propagation (FCP) behaviors of mass fraction 15% CTBN (carboxyl terminated butadiene acrylonitrile), 15% Qishi toughening agent toughened anhydride cured epoxy resins (EP), and pure anhydride cured EP were measured. The results showed that the two main toughening mechanisms, localized shear yielding and void plastics growth, which occurred near the threshold region because the rubber size is much less than the plastics size at the crack front, improved the near threshold FCP behavior and increased the threshold. The stable FCP behavior was obviously improved with the FCP rates decreased to less than 21%.

Reaction-induced phase separation in rubber-modified epoxy resin

The phase separation mechanism,and structure development during curing of epoxy with a novel liquid rubber-ZR were investigated by time-resolved light scattering,optical microscope and differential scanning calonmetry (DSC) The mixture loaded with curing agent was a single-phase system in the early stage of curing.When the cure reaction proceeded,phase separation took place via the spinodal decomposition induced by polymerization of epoxy resin.This was supported by the characteristic change of light scattering profile with curing time.Cure reaction plays an important role in the progress of phase separation.The bigger the cure reaction rate is,the longer periodic distance will be.The overall two-phase structure was basically locked in when the conversion approached 80% estimated by DSC,and finally the co-continuous two-phase structure was successfully obtained.