Characterizing The Mechanical Properties of Polyurethane Foams
- Savannah River National Laboratory - SRNL (United States)
The purpose is to determine the mechanical properties of polyurethane foams with the intent of using PU foams to fill large void asymmetrical volumes like a glovebox to fixate transferable radiological material. Testing the resiliency of foam technologies when exposed to physicals stressors will be done. Six COTS PU foams considered will be fabricated and tested (iT 7, iT 8, iT 14, iT 23, 3M Fire Barrier, and Hilti) with and without additives at 12.5% wt (Bi, WO{sub 3}, and Na{sub 2}WO{sub 3}). Polyurethanes (PU) are a special class of polymeric materials that have great potential in many applications. Used in automotive, biomedical, construction, and textiles industries. Sought after due to its versatility and superior properties. PU foams have become one of the most prominent PU-based products. Bench-scale testing by SRNL and FIU-ARC confirmed PU foam technology's superior capabilities: Cured in various and desired volumes; No samples generated heat above 90 deg. C during curing reaction; Incorporation of additives (Bi, WO{sub 3}, BiO{sub 3}, Na{sub 2}WO{sub 3}) led to the following shielding: 98% of Am-241, 16% of Cs-137, 9.5% of Co-60. Proved foams' resistance to thermal stressors: Foams lasted 2 hours of direct flame; Excellent thermal insulation; Maintained structural integrity; No smoke or flame propagation. Experiment 1: A tensile tester (MTS Criterion Series 43) will be utilize to evaluate various properties of different PU rigid and flexible foams with and without additives (at 12.5% wt) under tension at 1 mm/s. Experiment 2: A thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) and Dynamic Mechanical Analyzer (DMA) will be employed to determine PU foams' breakdown of physical properties while under a constant heat rate (10 C/min) and strain rate (1%) under a period of time. Foams with additives showed an increase in stiffness and durability during tensile testing with WO{sub 3} producing the best results for Foam iT 7. All the other foam samples showed similar trends. Glass transition temperature (Tg) range for Foam iT 7 with Na{sub 2}WO{sub 3} ranged from 120-150 C while Foam iT 7 blank Tg range was from 90-110 C with a difference of about 30 C showing improvement with addition of additives.
- Research Organization:
- WM Symposia, Inc., PO Box 27646, 85285-7646 Tempe, AZ (United States)
- OSTI ID:
- 23005547
- Report Number(s):
- INIS-US-21-WM-P8; TRN: US21V1467045881
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: WM2019: 45. Annual Waste Management Conference, Phoenix, AZ (United States), 3-7 Mar 2019; Other Information: Country of input: France; available online at: https://www.xcdsystem.com/wmsym/2019/index.html
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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