PREDICTION OF TENSILE YIELD STRENGTH OF RIGID INORGANIC PARTICULATE FILLED THERMOPLASTIC COMPOSITES

Advances in the study of the tensile yield strength of rigid inorganic particulate filled thermoplastic composites have been reviewed and br ief comments on the existing expressions for predicting it have been m ade in the present paper. The main factors affecting the yield strengt h of such composites are: (i) the interfacial adhesion between the fil lers and the matrix; (ii) the shape, size and its distribution of the fillers; (iii) the dispersion of the particles in the matrix. For fact or (i), this depends on a large extent upon the properties of the matr ix materials and the surface pre-treatment (or modification) of the in clusions. There have been relatively few theoretical descriptions of t he tensile yield-strength behaviour for rigid particulate-filled compo sites with interfacial adhesion lying between poor and good. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science S.A. All rights reserved.