Fracture behavior of PVC/Blendex/nano‐CaCO 3 composites

PVC/Blendex/Nano‐CaCO 3 composites were prepared by melt‐blending method. The Blendex (BLENDEX® 338) (GE Specialty Chemicals Co., Ltd., Shanghai, China) was an acrylonitrile‐butadiene‐styrene copolymer with high butadiene content. The fracture behavior of PVC/Blendex/nano‐CaCO 3 composites was studied using a modified essential work of fracture model, U / A = u 0 + u d l , where u 0 is the limiting specific fracture energy and u d is the dissipative energy density. The u 0 of PVC/Blendex blend could be greatly increased by the addition of nano‐CaCO 3 , while the u d was decreased. Nano‐CaCO 3 with particle size of 38 nm increased the u 0 of PVC/Blendex blend more effectively than that with particle size of 64 nm, when nano‐CaCO 3 content was below 10 phr. Both the u 0 and u d of PVC/Blendex/nano‐CaCO 3 composites were not much affected by increasing specimen thickness from 3 mm to 5 mm, while the two fracture parameters were increased with increasing loading rate from 2 mm/min to 10 mm/min, and u d was found to be more sensitive to the loading rate than u 0 . © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 95: 953–961, 2005