Mechanical, thermal and rheological properties of hollow glass microsphere filled thermoplastic polyurethane composites blended by normal vane extruder

Abstract

In this study, different proportions of hollow glass microsphere (HGM) filled thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) elastomer composites were prepared by normal vane extruder. The phase morphology, rheological properties, mechanical properties and thermal stability of TPU/HGM composites were investigated in detail. It was observed that the incorporation of HGM increased the thermal stability of TPU. With the increase in HGM content from 5 to 20 wt-%, the glass transition temperature, storagemodulus and complex viscosity values increasedcontinuously, while the density of the composite monotonously decreased. Moreover, the tensile modulus of the composites increased from 43.5 to 81.3 MPa. The results showed that, although raw HGM was used without any modification, the HGM played an important role in improving the properties of TPU.