Morphological and mechanical properties of foamed thick-walled Wood-Plastic-Composite structures

Microcellular wood fiber reinforced polymers offer the possibility to reduce the use of fossil raw materials. In particular, thick-walled structures with thicknesses greater than 6 mm offer a high potential for weight savings. This study investigates the cell structures and mechanical properties of injection-molded test specimens. The influence of different thicknesses (6–10 mm) along with different chemical blowing agents (endothermic, exothermic) with varying dosages (0–2 wt%) is analyzed. The investigations reveal that exothermic chemical blowing agents form finer cells consistently to thin-walled structures than endothermic ones. Higher foaming agent content leads to higher pore fractions, with many small cells coalescing into a large open-pore cell network. The mechanical properties depend mainly on the pore content of the sample. The specific tensile properties deteriorate with the use of chemical blowing agents (CFA), whereas the sandwich structure produced with compact edge layers has a positive influence on the specific flexural properties.