Effect of Aluminium Filler Content on the Mechanical Properties of Polyurethane Foam

Start In this work, the effects of Aluminium (Al) filler content in Polyurethane (PU) foam with different weight percentages (0.5 wt.% to 3.0 wt.%) were evaluated on morphology, density and compressive strength. The pure PU and PU/Al foam composites were produced from palm oil-based polyol (POP) and methylene diphenyl diisocyanate (MDI) with a ratio of 1:1. Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) morphology showed that the cell structure of PU/Al foam composites is less homogeneous as compared to the pure PU. The PU/Al foam composites displayed a higher number of cells with a smaller cell size as the amount of Al content was increased. The addition of 1.5 wt.% Al on the PU foam showed the highest density and compressive strength in 0.073 g/cm(3) and 0.56 MPa, respectively. Meanwhile, the further addition of Al on PU foam has decreased the density and compressive strength value. The experimental compressive strength results have compared to the theoretical results that tested by using ANSYS MULTIPHYSICS (15.0) software.