Gradient Interphases in Polymer Nanocomposites

As revealed by experimental data on ultrathin polymer films [1, 2], polymer mobility changes in a gradient fashion away from the polymer-surface interface. However, little is yet known on gradients in mechanical properties in polymer nanocomposites. In this work, we discuss a novel nanoindentation experimental approach to measure these properties in model nanocomposite systems, the associated modeling to extract realistic data (Figure1), and simulations of representative volume elements (RVE) of nanocomposites including interphase layers (Figure2).Copyright © 2009 by ASME