Evidence for mechanical coupling effects in binary polymer blends: Relationships with morphology

The viscoelastic properties of binary thermoset and thermoplastic polymer b lends were investigated in connection with blend morphologies. Christensen and Lo's model was used to predict mechanical coupling effects in such bina ry multiphased systems by accounting for the actual morphology of samples. Thus, it was shown that the magnitude of mechanical coupling effects betwee n phases in polymer blends, as in composite materials, depends not only on mechanical properties and relative content of each phase but also on the ge ometric arrangement of the polymeric phases. Furthermore, based on both the ory and experiment, a well-suited probe of blend morphology was also propos ed. (C) 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.