JOURNAL OF POLYMER ENGINEERING

 Vol. 22, No. 2, 2002, page 115

CARBON FIBER-FILLED CONDUCTIVE COMPOSITES BASED ON EVA, EPDM AND THEIR BLENDS

N.C. Das, T.K. Chaki* and D. Khastgir

Rubber Technology Centre

Indian Institute of Technology,
Kharagpur – 721302, India

ABSTRACT

Short carbon fiber-filled conductive rubber composites have been derived from EVA, EPDM and their 50:50 blend. The electrical and mechanical properties for each system have been studied. The SCF-filled composites show poorer mechanical properties than the carbon black-filled composite because of the lower degree of interaction between the carbon fibers and the rubber matrix. On increasing the filler loading in each system, the resistivity was observed to drop by several orders of magnitude at a critical filler concentration region. The effect of temperature on the volume resistivity and the activation energy of conduction have also been reported. The change in volume resistivity during the heating and cooling cycle did not follow the same route, leading to the phenomenon of electrical hysteresis and electrical set.

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