X-ray Microtomographic Study of Nanoclay-Polypropylene Foams

In the present paper X-ray microtomography technique has been applied to investigate internal, three dimensional structure of clay/polypropylene nanocomposite foams. Several sets of foam samples were prepared using the improved compression moulding technique that allows controlling independently the cells' size, cells' shape and density of foams. Then the X-ray images were acquired followed by an application of image processing steps and final reconstruction of foams microstructure. Volume distribution of cells has been extracted from three dimensional images and related to processing parameters. Since not only the size but also the shape of cells influences a load bearing capacity of foams, the sphericity parameter has been selected as a relative quantifier of cells shape. The sphericity parameter has been also related to different processing parameters.