Internal Friction of Polymer Composites with Nanosilicas Fabricated by Ultraviolet Irradiation

The internal friction behavior of the nanocomposite polymer was studied using a multifunction internal friction apparatus. It is shown that the internal friction peak in the polymer has relaxation feature and the peak height is almost independent of frequency for the polymer without nanosilica. Nevertheless, the peak height in the polymer with nanosilica increases not only with increasing vibration frequency, but also with increasing nanosilica content, which results from the stronger interaction between nanosilica with polymer chains. For the nanocomposite polymer with 3 wt.% nanosilica, the activation energy of polymer chain motion is higher than that of neat copolymers.