Effect of varying stiffness on the interfacial failure behavior of isotactic polypropylene and porous alumina studied via DPD simulation

Abstract

This work studies a polymer–metal oxide bonded interface consisting of isotactic polypropylene (iPP) and a porous surface, and examines the impact of the stiffness of the polymeric component on the tensile strength of the interface using the dissipative particle dynamics (DPD) method. Our calculations reveal that an increase in the stiffness of iPP component leads to an increased tensile strength on the porous alumina even in an interfacial failure. The tensile failure mode observed on the porous surface is caused by the slippage of iPP component along the pore walls. An iPP component with a higher Young’s modulus is more resistant to deformation during tensile tests, which makes it difficult for the interfacial stress to reach the critical strain for the slippage, and thus results in an increased tensile strength of the bonded interface.