Effect of volume loading and surface treatment on the thixotropic behavior of polypropylene filled with calcium carbonate

Abstract The rheological properties of calcium carbonate‐filled polypropylene were examined using a Rheometrics dynamic analyzer. The study included steady shear test, transient stress growth test with sequential deformation history, and two‐step dynamic oscillatory shear flow. Thixotropic behavior was observed in transient tests for highly filled compounds when volume loading exceeding a critical value at about 20%. The material responses of these viscoelastic thixotropic materials depend on the duration of shear as well as on the rate of shear. The effects of filler on the rheological behavior of highly filled compounds are dominant at low strain rates; however, the effects of activity of the filler are almost negligible at high strain rates because of complete breakdown of the filler network. The timescales for structural changes in filled systems often become long compared with the viscoealstic time constants of the unfilled melt. The magnitudes of rheological properties and the degree of hysteresis appear to increase with increasing volume loading of filler particles. Conversely, surface treatment of fillers, which presumably reduces interaction between filler particles and the extent of agglomeration, results in major reductions of both rheological properties and the degree of hysteresis. The diverse experimental observations are interpreted in terms of a system forming a filler network due to weak interparticle forces. The thixotropy resulting from breakdown and recovery of the filler network is dependent on the characteristic time of the individual test.