Mechanical and fracture performance of injected metallic looking polypropylene parts

COSTANTINO ALEJANDRA; PETTARIN VALERIA; PONTES ANTONIO; PATRICIA FRONTINI

Santa Fe

Congreso; Congreso Internacional de Metalurgia y Materiales SAM-CONAMET/IBEROMAT/MATERIA; 2014

Innovation, cost and weightreduction are some factors driving for the replacement of metals by plastics.Plastics continue to offer attractive solutions for design engineers. Themetallic effect obtained by incorporation of metal particles in polymers byinjection molding has the advantage of eliminating post-processing techniquesreducing production cost and time. Nevertheless, undesired defects in the finalappearance of parts are common. These defects occur due to inhomogeneous orientationand anisotropy of the metal particles. Very few studies are reporting theinfluence of metallic particles on the morphology development of PP parts.Therefore, this study is focused on the production of parts made of PP/metallicpigments (aluminum) by injection molding in order to understand the influenceof metallic particles on the aesthetic, morphological and mechanical propertiesof the parts.