A series of composites were prepared from a high density polyethylene (HDPE) and a carbon fiber (CF) using an extrusion technique. Thin sheets of these composites containing CF from 5 to 20 wt% were molded in a hot-press at 250°C, and then crosslinked by the irradiation of β-ray ranging from 10 to 40 Mrads.
The dispersion of CF, observed with an optical and a scanning electron microscope, seemed to be homogeneous if the concentration of CF was 10 wt% or less. Some local aggregations of CF were found in the composites containing CF more than 15 wt%.
The efficiency with respect to the crosslinking, evaluated by an extraction technique in boiling xylene, increased slightly by adding CF in HDPE. It could not be concluded, however, whether or not the crosslinking between HDPE and CF had occurred during the β-ray irradiation, because the efficiency was independent of the CF content. The mixing of CF upto 15 wt% into HDPE was effective for improving the elastic modulus of the resulted composites: the static modulus, estimated using a tensile tester, increased as a function of CF content. In addition, the storage modulus evaluated by using a dynamic viscoelastometer, increased with increasing the amount of CF in the mixtures. However both moduli tended to decrease at CF content of 20 wt%. This may be attributable to the inhomogeneous dispersion of CF in HDPE matrix.
Finally it is noteworthy that these composites have shown rather high elastic modulus even at 110°C. In other words, the mixing of CF improves the mechanical properties of HDPE at elevated temperatures.
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