Breakdown Voltage of Thermoplastics with Clay Nanometer-Sized Fillers (Postprint)

摘要

The addition of fillers are used commonly in industry to improve physical properties of polymers, such as stiffness, hardness, wear, heat distortion temperature or electrical conductivity, or to reduce the overall raw material cost of a part. The addition of nanometer-sized fillers, or nanofillers, has shown potential for impr oving the polymer's dielectric breakdown voltage in conjunction with augmentation of its mechanical properties. Five different sets of thermoplastics were tested between opposed cylindrical rod electrodes of 6.4 mm diameter with rounded edges of 0.8 mm radius. All polymers in this study showed an increase in the average dielectric strength from 5 to 56 percent with the nanoscale dispersion of 1.5 wt% organically modified montmorillonite (nanoclay). Most of these increases exhibited statistically significant margins. The tested thermoplastic polymers include nylon-6, low-density polyethylene/ethylene-vinyl acetate copolymer, and polyester.