The hydrolytic stability of glass fiber reinforced poly(butylene terephthalate), poly(ethylene terephthalate) and polycarbonate

Abstract

Abstract The hydrolytic stability of glass fiber reinforced poly(butylene terephthalate) (PBT), poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET) and polycarbonate (PC) was studied. The activation energies in kcal/mole for hydrolysis are 26 for PBT and 23 for PET. Both PBT and PET contain 30 percent glass fiber reinforcement. The hydrolysis rates for a series of experimental PC's containing 10, 30 and 40 percent glass were obtained from GPC data. These increase with glass concentration but are lower than that of the unreinforced PC. Melt flow rate changes are a good measure of the hydrolytic degradation of PET. However, in the time scale of these experiments, the tensile properties of glass reinforced PBT and PC do not correlate well with M̄ w changes, unlike unreinforced PBT and PC polymers. Consequently, to compare these three glass fiber reinforced polymers, estimates of failure time must be based on changes in tensile strength rather than melt flow rate.