Microindentation hardness of nanostructured thermoplastic materials

9 pags., 7 figs.The micromechanical behaviour of various thermoplastics based nanocomposites was investigated with the aid of the microindentation technique. The materials studied were microphase separated styrene-butadiene block copolymer systems and several thermoplastics reinforced with nano-sized fillers having variable dimensionality. It was found that the microhardness behaviour of the nanocomposites studied was strongly influenced by the dimensionalities of the filler. Due to large surface to volume-ratio one- and two-dimensional fillers exhibit a far better reinforcing behaviour than the three dimensional ones. In case of nanostructured block copolymers, the microhardness is not determined by the total polystyrene (PS)/ polybutadiene (PB) composition alone but diminishes gradually in presence of freely standing dangling polybutadiene chains even if the morphology of the systems remains unaltered. Copyright © 2010 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim