Rheological Properties of TPU/SiO2 Nanocomposites and Modeling with Generalized Maxwell Model

In this work, the thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) with silica (SiO2) nanoparticles at different loadingare blended by melt mixing using internal mixer. The viscoelastic properties for these nanocomposites are measuredusing the dynamic strain and frequency sweep experiments. Increasing nanoparticle loading of the nanocomposites leadsto intensify filler- filler network formation so that the storage and loss moduli are enhanced. Moreover, polymer chainsadsorption on the particles surface and formation of filler- polymer network increases with filler loading additions. Thenetwork structure alters the rheological behaviour of nanocomposites such as solid like behaviour in the low frequencyregion. Furthermore, we used a nonlinear optimization to obtain the parameters of generalized Maxwell model forTPU/SiO2 nanocomposites and results showed the relaxation times of polymer chains increase with increasingnanoparticle loading.

Keywords:

Rheology , Generalized Maxwell , Nanocomposite , TPU , SiO2