Polymer Bulletin, Vol.71, No.3, 613-624, 2014
Interface evaluation in the ternary blends of HDPE/PA-6/EVOH
In this work, a quantitative evaluation on interface situation in HDPE/PA-6/EVOH ternary blends is presented. For this purpose, binary and ternary blends based on HDPE as continuous phase and PA-6 and EVOH as minor components with different weight ratios were prepared. The morphology of the blends was studied by SEM and their mechanical properties were measured. Then, through a theoretical/experimental approach, the tensile characteristics of HDPE/PA-6/EVOH ternary blends are discussed. The interface situation in the prepared blends is probed in such a manner that phenomenological models are successfully extended to the case of ternary blends and their parameters are obtained using available predictive schemes. In addition, the stress-strain curves of all prepared binary and ternary blends comprising different PA-6 to EVOH weight ratios in the minority phase are taken into account to study the yielding and toughening phenomena followed by quantitative evaluation of interfacial adhesion. The results provided support for the fact that the yielding behavior of prepared ternary blends is dependent on the minor component fraction possibly due to the formation of voids at the interface of polymers.