Bioinspired Functional Gradients For Toughness Augmentation In Synthetic Polymer Systems

Keywords

biomimetic; heterogeneous polymers; high performance polymers; mechanical properties; toughness

Abstract

In nature, load-bearing polymeric materials that do not present significant trade-off between elongation and elastic modulus are often found, but are rare in synthetic systems. One mechanism for emulating these natural systems is with functionally graded materials (FGMs). The development of synthetic FGM systems with varying moduli gradient using tuned poly(meth)acrylate multilayers is shown. Such localized tuning of crosslink density is shown as a mechanism to increase rigidity without significant compromise to maximum strain. The toughest FGM shows 43% higher tensile strength and 9% higher stiffness than copolymer elastomers with similar maximum strain (εmax ≈ 110%), increasing toughness by 25%. These improved tensile mechanical properties can be due to beneficial interlayer crack deflection and delamination. This gradient approach provides potential to improve toughness of various load-bearing polymeric materials.

Publication Date

8-1-2018

Publication Title

Macromolecular Chemistry and Physics

Volume

219

Issue

15

Document Type

Article

Personal Identifier

scopus

DOI Link

https://doi.org/10.1002/macp.201800134

Socpus ID

85050721329 (Scopus)

Source API URL

https://api.elsevier.com/content/abstract/scopus_id/85050721329

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