Impact Modification Strategies for Engineering Polymers

Attempts to increase impact resistance often goes hand in hand with loss in transparency, modulus... Often but not always! A careful selection of your impact modifiers make it possible to avoid such compromises. Join this course and:

1. Better select impact modifiers  by understanding the key failure mechanisms (crazing, sheer yielding) & critical parameters to improve toughness in your engineering polymers
2. Solve compatibility issues between impact modifiers & other additives (fillers, pigments, flame retardants...) by recognizing the causes & preventing them
3. Easily tweak final impact resistance by adjusting additives impact modifier concentration, particle size, inter-particle spacing... depending on your engineering plastics

R&D people who need to find the right balance between impact modifiers & other additives (fillers, pigments, flame retardants,...) in their engineering plastics.

The following sections will be covered during this session:

1. Plastics fundamentals, e.g. mechanical properties
   • Property balance between modulus, strength and impact resistance
   • Performance / cost ratios for engineering polymers
   • Impact Failure Mechanisms


2. Impact modifiers selection
   • Adding fillers, elastomer particles or making polymer blends...
   • The pros and cons of different elastomer chemistry (polybutadiene versus acrylate rubber)
   • The importance of impact modifier particle size, bonding and cross-linking


3. How to minimize unwanted interaction between particulate impact modifiers and fillers / pigments (including real-life cases)



4. How to minimize the effect of impact modifiers affect other properties: transparency and colorability (including real-life cases)



5. Summary sheet as a quick reference guide to modifier selection