Polymer foaming with chemical blowing agents: experiment and modeling

An experimental and theoretical analysis of the polypropylene foaming process using three different chemical blowing agents (CBA) was performed. A simple experiment was designed to analyze the foaming process of polypropylene (PP)/C[O.sub.2] system under two different pressure conditions. The expansion ratio and final foam structure was measured both by direct observation and from optical measurements and image analysis, showing a good agreement. A single bubble simulation based on relevant differential scanning calorimetry and thermo-gravimetrical analysis experiments, assuming each CBA particles as a nucleation site and accounting for gas diffusion in the surrounding polymer matrix has been built. The sensitivity of the model to physical and processing parameters has been tested. The calculation results are compared to the experiments and open the route to a simplified method for evaluating the efficiency of CBA.
INTRODUCTION The foaming process to produce microcellular thermoplastics has been widely analysed in the last decades. Microcellular plastics are generally formed by cell nucleation and growth of bubbles in the [...]