Engineered elastomeric bio-nanocomposites from linseed oil/organoclay tailored for vibration damping

This study deals with the preparation and characterization of elastomeric nanocomposites from renewable resources for vibration damping applications. The nanocomposites were synthesized by in situ cationic polymerization technique in the presence of organophilic montmorillonite (modified nanoclay) filler. The clay filled nanocomposites showed superior dynamic moduli in comparison with the pure elastomers. The storage modulus at room temperature (25 degrees C) was improved by 1.56 to 2 times with respect to pure elastomers with an increase in the filler content from 1 to 4 %. A good and stable vibration damping is observed in a wide temperature and frequency region (1-50 Hz). The loss factor, tan dmax obtained from dynamic mechanical analysis varies from 0.58 to 0.87. Under laboratory fabricated testing systems, the transient attenuation with the complete decay of applied vibration within nanocomposites demonstrates that the elastomeric nanocomposites have potential as effective damping materials.