Calculating the composition of dispersion-filled polymer composite materials of various structures

Objectives. The aim is to calculate the composition of dispersion-filled polymer composite materials with different fillers and structures and to highlight differences in the expression of said composition in mass and volume units.

Methods. The paper presents the calculation of compositions in mass and volume units for various types of structures comprising dispersion-filled polymer composite materials according to their classification: diluted, low-filled, medium-filled, and highly-filled systems.

Results. For calculations, we used fillers with densities ranging from 0.00129 (air) to 22.0 g/cm³ (osmium) and polymer matrices with densities between 0.8 g/cm³ and 1.5 g/cm³ , which represent almost all known fillers and polymer matrices used to create dispersion-filled polymer composite materials. The general dependences of the filler content on the ratio of the filler density to the density of the polymer matrix for dispersion-filled polymer composite materials with different types of dispersed structures are presented. It is shown that to describe structures comprising different types of dispersion-filled polymer composite materials (diluted, low-filled, medium-filled, and highly-filled) it is necessary to use only the volume ratios of components in the calculations. Compositions presented in mass units do not describe the construction of dispersion-filled polymer composite material structures because using the same composition in volume units, different ratios of components can be obtained for different fillers.

Conclusions. The dependences of the properties of dispersion-filled polymer composite materials should be represented in the coordinates of the property – content of the dispersed phase only in volume units (vol % or vol. fract.) because the structure determines the properties. Compositions presented in mass units are necessary for receiving batches upon receipt of dispersion-filled polymer composite materials. Formulas are given for calculating and converting dispersion-filled polymer composite material compositions from bulk to mass units, and vice versa.

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