A New Approach to the Structure-Properties Relationships Determination for Porous Filled Reinforced Materials

This study describes a new mathematical approach to the relationship between mechanical properties (tensile modulus, ultimate strength, and strain), composition as well as structure of porous-filled reinforced composites. The composite system consisted of a polyurethane matrix, a rubber filler, and a small amount of polyethylene terephthalate as a reinforcement. The newly proposed equations are based on a special mixing rule with the same basic form for all studied properties. The mixing rule contains a correction parameter η, which differs in different filler content in the filled part of the composite. Here, a cubic exponential function including the product of suitable structural parameters and exponents ensuring the best fitting and describable by matrix properties were successfully defined to fit the different values of correction parameter. The proposed equations should be a suitable step to obtain a relationship for describing the mechanical behavior of porous-filled and reinforced composites in the case of a small amount of reinforcement.