Micro-cellulose fibers filled epoxy foams

P. M. STEFANI; C.J. PEREZ; V.A. ALVAREZ; A. VAZQUEZ

JOURNAL OF APPLIED POLYMER SCIENCE

wiley

Año: 2008 vol. 109 p. 109 - 1013

0021-8995

The dynamic-mechanical behavior of epoxy foams reinforced with micro-cellulose fibers was investigated. Micro-cellulose fibers were obtained from sisal fibers by a several step process which includes chlorination, alkaline extraction, and bleaching. In order to analyze the effect of cellular structure on DMA properties, un-reinforced and reinforced un-foamed epoxy samples were also used. SEM experiments demonstrated that the addition of micro-fiber modified the final morphology, decreasing the average cell size and increasing the number of cells per volume unit. The dynamic-mechanical behavior of the reinforced samples, un-foamed epoxy and foamed epoxy, showed improvements with respect to the un-reinforced ones, but the effect was remarkable in the second case.