TENSILE TOUGHNESS OF MICROCELLULAR FOAMS OF POLYSTYRENE, STYRENE-ACRYLONITRILE COPOLYMER, AND POLYCARBONATE, AND THE EFFECT OF DISSOLVED-GAS ON THE TENSILE TOUGHNESS OF THE SAME POLYMER MATRICES AND MICROCELLULAR FOAMS

This paper reports on the tensile properties of microcellular foams of three different thermoplastics, since there have been several reports in the literature, but with indefinite conclusions so far, that microbubbles act in a manner similar to rubber particles in toughening thermoplastics. Polystyrene (PS), styrene-acrylonitrile copolymer (SAN), and polycarbonate (PC), were selected based on their different intrinsic ductilities. The gas supersaturation technique was used to generate samples with microbubbles. The effect of the presence of microbubbles inside the polymer matrix was separated from the effects of the pressure and thermal history experienced by the samples. Nitrogen gas dissolved into PS, and to a lesser extent into SAN, caused an increase of the tensile toughness, but this increase decayed with time as nitrogen gas diffused out of the samples. Furthermore, microcellularly foamed PS samples showed some limited improvement in terms of tensile toughness after all the nitrogen gas diffused out. SAN and PC showed deterioration of the tensile toughness in the presence of microbubbles.