Two-component injection moulding of thermoset rubber and thermoplastics: Absolute interface strength prediction

Polymer products which combine two different materials, for their specific properties, are often produced via the two component injection moulding technique. An optimal adhesion between the two components is a crit-ical quality parameter for this kind of products. This property for the combination of two thermoplastic mate-rials is well known and extensively described in literature. For thermoset rubbers combined with thermoplastic materials, almost no information is available on the adhesion between the two components and how to predict its strength. From earlier research, it is known that curing of the thermoset rubber combined with the interface temperature influences the interfacial strength, however, until now, no absolute value prediction is given. This paper presents the necessary insight to predict the absolute interfacial strength, based on the melting trajectory of the semi-crystalline thermoplastic material and the degree of cure of the thermoset rubber. Results show that this method makes it possible to predict the manner of interface failure (adhesive, cohesive or mixed), es-timates the interfacial strength and correlates well with experiments on a simple geometrystatus: publishe