Dynamic mechanical analysis of low-density polyethylene with glass beads

Glass bead-filled low-density polyethylene (LDPE) composites have been anal yzed employing dynamic mechanical analysis. The storage moduli of the compo sites decrease rapidly in a temperature range from -150 to -100 degrees C a nd from -50 to 0 degrees C, and then decrease gently with a rise of tempera tures. The mechanical damping increases with a rise of temperatures and dec reases with increasing the weight fraction (phi) of glass beads when phi is greater than 10%. The glass transition temperature varies with phi and is the lowest at phi = 10%. Under the same test conditions, the storage modulu s of the LDPE filled with glass beads pretreated with a silane coupling age nt is greater than that of the unpretreated system but is contrary to mecha nical damping. The relative storage modulus calculated by using an equation presented in previous work was close to that measured from the composites under the test conditions.