Crystalline microstructure and mechanical properties of crosslinked EPDM aged under gamma irradiation

The morphology and the mechanical properties at room temperature of crosslinked EPDM irradiated or not have been studied. It has been shown that these materials are composed of two phases: semicrystalline zones with a crystallinity ratio of 20% and mainly amorphous zones. The semicrystalline zones make a continuous path through the film and therefore control the mechanical properties of the material below the melting temperature. As irradiation (in the tested range of irradiation dose) and crosslinking degree have no significant influence on the arrangement and proportion of the crystalline lamellae, all samples have nearly the same mechanical behavior at small strains. At large strains, the interactions between amorphous and crystalline parts in semicrystalline zones play the main role in the mechanical response; irradiation, by degradation of these interactions, leads to a smaller hardening phenomenon and a decrease in elongation at break. From an application point of view, in spite of the low crystallinity fraction of these materials, the presence of an important number of crystallites, as evidenced by SAXS measurements, strongly limits the consequences of irradiation on the mechanical properties. However, the mechanical reinforcement strongly depending on the presence of these crystallites, it is therefore highly sensitive to temperature: this can be an important issue for the applications of these materials since their use temperature is close to the crystallite melting temperature. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part B: Polym Phys 48: 97–105, 2010