Mechanical behavior and wrinkling patterns of phase-separated binary polymer blend film

Abstract

The wrinkling of phase-separated binary polymer blend film was studied through combining the Monte Carlo (MC) simulation for morphologies with the lattice spring model (LSM) for mechanical properties. The information of morphology and structure obtained by use of MC simulation is input to the LSM composed of a three-dimensional network of springs, which allows us to determine the wrinkling and the mechanical properties of polymer blend film, such as strain, stress, and Young’s modulus. The simulated results show that the wrinkling of phase-separated binary polymer blend film is related not only to the structure of morphology, but also to the disparity in elastic moduli between polymers of blend. Our simulation results provide fundamental insight into the relationship between morphology, wrinkling, and mechanical properties for phase-separated polymer blend films and can yield guidelines for formulating blends with the desired mechanical behavior. The wrinkling results also reveal that the stretching of the phase-separated film can form the micro-template, which has a wide application prospect.

Keywords

polymer blend film / phase separation / mechanical property / wrinkling / lattice spring model

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Acknowledgment

Financial support for this work was provided by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 20976044, 20736002), Program for Changjiang Scholars and Innovative Research Team in University of China (Grant No. IRT0721) and the 111 Project of China (Grant No. B08021).

RIGHTS & PERMISSIONS

2014 Higher Education Press and Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg