Projects @ Polymer Engineering Labs
Wear characteristics of polymer nanocomposites
Scratch characteristics of several nanofilled polymers were recently studied and correlated with their bulk mechanical properties. Filler types include carbon nanotubes, nanoclay, POSS and fullerenes, together with microsized fillers such as glass beads/bubbles for comparison purposes. In this work the effect of the nanofillers on other tribological properties (namely friction and wear) will be characterized. The research is in collaboration with the Italian company LATI thermoplastics, based in Vedano Olona (VA).
Dynamic and acoustical characterization of foamed polymers
This project is related to foamed polymeric materials and in particular their dynamic and acoustic characteristics. These are obviously related to the intrinsic viscoelastic behaviour of the constituent polymer. Dynamic mechanical analysis (DMA) will be used to measure the foams’ dynamic response; the experimental window will be enlarged by performing tests at various temperatures and taking advantage of time-temperature superposition. The data will then be forwarded to vibro-acoustical FE numerical models whose predictions will be experimentally validated.
Effect of polymeric foams microstructure on their mechanical properties
Large-strain response of cellular materials, which is essential for applications related to their excellent shock-absorbing properties, strongly depends on their microstructure. In order to characterize the latter, high-resolution 2D and 3D (CT) imaging techniques can be used, possibly coupled with digital image correlation (DIC) in order to extract full-field displacements during quasi-static mechanical testing. This information allows to interpret the global mechanical behaviour in view of the active deformation and damage mechanisms.
Please contact Luca Andena (luca.andena@polimi.it) if you are interested.