Correlation between impact strength and fracture surface fractal dimension of ABS filled with hollow glass beads

The hollow glass bead (HGB) filled poly(acrylonitrile–butadiene–styrene) copolymer (ABS) composites were prepared by means of a twin‐screw extruder. The HGB surface of was treated using a silane coupling agent, and the filler volume fraction was range from 0 to 15%. The impact strength ( σ I ) of the ABS/HGB composites was measured at room temperature. On the basis of the impact fracture surface SEM photograph, the impact fracture surface fractal dimension ( D s ) of the composites was measured, respectively, by means of the pixel‐covering method and projective‐covering method and an image processing software, to investigate the relationship between the D s and σ I of the composites. The results showed that the σ I was related closely to D s : σ I increased with an increase of D s , and the relationship between them could be described by an exponential function. Furthermore, the D s measured by the pixel‐covering method were from 1.6232 to 1.7313, while those measured by the projective‐covering method were from 2.5174 to 2.5752. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.