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Creep and Dynamic Mechanical Analysis Studies of Peroxide‐Crosslinked Ethylene‐Octene Copolymer
Author(s) -
Theravalappil Rajesh,
Svoboda Petr,
Poongavalappil Sameepa,
Svobodova Dagmar
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
macromolecular materials and engineering
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.913
H-Index - 96
eISSN - 1439-2054
pISSN - 1438-7492
DOI - 10.1002/mame.201100289
Subject(s) - materials science , peroxide , dynamic mechanical analysis , differential scanning calorimetry , copolymer , creep , organic peroxide , octene , ethylene , composite material , polymer chemistry , polymer , catalysis , chemistry , organic chemistry , thermodynamics , physics
An ethylene‐octene copolymer (EOC) (45 wt% octene) is crosslinked using dicumyl peroxide (DCP). Differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) reveals a very low melting temperature (50 °C). The network density is evaluated by gel content. While 0.2–0.3 wt% of peroxide leads only to a molecular weight increase (samples completely dissolved in xylene), 0.4–0.6 wt% of peroxide caused network formation. High‐temperature creep was measured at 70, 120, and 200 °C at three stress levels. At 200 °C and above 0.6 wt% of peroxide, degradation due to chain scission is observed by rubber process analyzer (RPA) and is again supported by creep measurements. Residual strain at 70 °C is found to improve with increasing peroxide level. Dynamic mechanical analysis (DMA) reveals a strong influence of peroxide content on storage modulus and tan δ , in particular in the range 30–200 °C.