Title: CHARPY IMPACT TEST OF POLYPROPYLENE AT VARIOUS

TEMPERATURES

SAFETY
Thre are no specific hazard or risks identified with this practical. Standard laboratory procedures apply.

OBJECTIVE

To become familiar with the relationship between the impact strength of polypropylene and
temperature associated with charpy test

INTRODUCTION
We think of polymers as being tough or brittle depending on our experience of them, thus PMMA is
brittle and plasticized PVC is tough. Toughness can be assessed either from the area under a stress-
stain curve or from the energy required to fracture the material under impact loading. Although the
fractures of many thermoplastics, which may break in service under impact loading, are nearly always
brittle, the inherent toughness of the material is very dependent upon temperature, structural
orientation, stress concentration effects and rate of loading.

The glass transition point, Tg, which is the temperature where molecular rotation about single bonds
becomes restricted, and the facility with which crystallisation can take place are both fundamental to
the impact strength of a polymer. Well below the glass transition point, amorphous polymers break
with a brittle fracture, but they become tougher as the glass transition point is approached. Above Tg,
impact strength will cease to have much significance if a pronounced state develops. In more
crystalline materials, the toughness will depend on the degree of crystallinity and the size of crystals;
very large degrees of crystallinity and large spherulitic structures lead to low-moderate impact
strengths.

The most common method used for measuring impact strength is the notched bar test. This test is
utilised in this experment whose objective is to determine the impact strength of a given polymer over a
range of temperatures and to estimate the range of temperatures in which the transition from tough to
brittle fracture occurs.

EXPERIMENTAL PROCEDURE
1. You are supplied with a number of rectangular-section standard Charpy test pieces of polymer
that have been notched and unnotched.

2. Refer to the printed instruction relating to the use of the Impact Machine and then test three
specimens consecutively at room temperature for sharp notched, blunt notched and unnotched
samples. The average of the three values eventually will be entered as a point on a graph of
impact energy against temperature. This method is based on BS2782, Part 359.

3. Repeat operatuion 2 at -20oC. Transfer each specimen from the freezer to the impact machine
as quickly as possible to minimise errors in temperature.

MAJOR REPORT

a) Tabulate the individual values and average value of impact energy absorbed by the specimens
for each test temperature
b) Discuss the effect of temperature on impact energy for sharp notched, blunt notched and
unnotched samples
c) Analyze experimental error
d) Explain the cause of the whitening observed in some of the fractured samples.