Yield, impact and fracture performance of injected metallic looking polypropylene parts

MARIA ALEJANDRA COSTANTINO; ANTONIO PONTES; VALERIA PETTARIN; PATRICIA FRONTINI

Guimarães

Conferencia; PMI 2014; 2014

Innovation, cost and weight reduction are some factors for the replacement of metals by plastics. Plastics continue to offer attractive solutions for design engineers. The metallic effect obtained by incorporation of metal particles in polymers by injection molding has the advantage of eliminating post-processing techniques reducing production cost and time. Nevertheless, undesired defects in the final appearance of parts are common. These defects occur due to inhomogeneous orientation and anisotropy of the metal particles. Very few studies are reporting the influence of metallic particles on the morphology development of PP parts. Therefore, this study is focused on the production of parts made of PP/metallic pigments (aluminum) by injection molding in order to understand the influence of metallic particles on the aesthetic, morphological and mechanical properties of the parts.