The influence of cell size on the mechanical properties of nanocellular PMMA
View / Open Files
Publication Date
2019-10-24Journal Title
Polymer
ISSN
0032-3861
Publisher
Elsevier BV
Volume
181
Type
Article
This Version
AM
Metadata
Show full item recordCitation
Martín-de León, J., Van Loock, F., Bernardo, V., Fleck, N., & Rodríguez-Pérez, M. (2019). The influence of cell size on the mechanical properties of nanocellular PMMA. Polymer, 181 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.polymer.2019.121805
Abstract
Solid-state foaming experiments are conducted on three grades of polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA). Nanocellular PMMA foams are manufactured with an average cell size ranging from 20 nm to 84 nm and a relative density between 0.37 and 0.5. For benchmarking purposes, additional microcellular PMMA foams with an average cell size close to 1 µm and relative density close to that of the nanocellular foams are manufactured. Uniaxial compression tests and single edge notch bend tests are conducted on the PMMA foams. The measured Young’s modulus and yield strength of the PMMA foams are independent of cell size whereas the fracture toughness of the PMMA foam increases with decreasing average cell size from the micron range to the nanometer range.
Sponsorship
Financial assistance from MINECO, FEDER, UE (MAT2015-69234-R), the Junta of Castile and Leon (VA275P18) and Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities (RTI2018-098749-B-I00) are gratefully acknowledged. Financial support from FPU grant FPU14/02050 (V. Bernardo) from the Spanish Ministry of Education and Junta of Castile and Leon grant (J. Martín-de León) are gratefully acknowledged. Financial support from SABIC and the EPSRC award 1611305 (F. Van Loock), and the ERC project MULTILAT (N. A. Fleck) are acknowledged too.
Funder references
EPSRC (1611305)
European Commission Horizon 2020 (H2020) ERC (206409)
Identifiers
External DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.polymer.2019.121805
This record's URL: https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/296990
Rights
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
Licence URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/