(1) Department of Chemical Engineering and Macromolecular Chemistry-University Paderborn - Paderborn - Germany, (2) Faculty of Polymer Processing-Iran Polymer and Petrochemical Institute - Tehran - Iran, (3) Department of Mechanical Engineering-University Paderborn - Paderborn - Germany
The aim of this work is to investigate the influence of fibrillar morphology of deformed droplets of Polyamide 6 (PA6) dispersed in Polypropylene (PP) matrix on the melt viscoelastic behavior of their blends. The blends of PP with various amounts of PA6 (1%, 6%, 10% and 20%) are prepared by melt mixing in a co-rotating twin screw extruder and consequently fibrillated by fiber spinning process. Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) showed that the PA6 spherical droplets are deformed to a fibrillar morphology in fiber spinning process. The steady and transient shear rheological responses of samples are evaluated in both linear and nonlinear range of deformation. Storage modulus and complex viscosity of the blends containing PA6 fibrillated structure remarkably enhanced compared to as-extruded samples. The fibrillar-induced elasticity of fibers is a distinguishable behavior which revealed by conducting transient stress and creep-recovery measurements. Upon appearing mature fibrils, elasticity of polymer blend fibers increased significantly.