Dynamic mechanical properties of polyolefin foams studied by DMA techniques

In this work a preliminary study on the viscoelastic behavior of polyolefinic foam sheets with different chemical (polyethylene and polypropylene) and cellular structure by means of Dynamical Mechanical Analysis (DMA), in the low frequency and low compression ranges, is presented. Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC) and Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) are also used to determine the morphological parameters of the samples. A connection between the morphological parameters (apparent degree of crystallinity, type of cellular structure, homogeneity, cell size and shape, cell-wall thickness) and the viscoelastic behavior, a basic key for the development of mechanical and insulating applications, has been established.