A nanocomposite based on a styrene-acrylate copolymer and native montmorillonite clay 2. Modeling the elastic properties

A variant of stepwise determination of the elastic characteristics of quasi-isotropic polymer-silicate nanocomposites with randomly oriented platelike filler particles is considered. First, the elastic constants of transversely isotropic structural elements with coplanarly placed filler particles are obtained, and then they are averaged over all spatial directions by using the orientational averaging method. The characteristic features of the hierarchical structure of exfoliated and intercalated nanocomposites are also considered. The concentration dependences of elastic constants of a nanocomposite based on a styrene-acrylate copolymer and native montmorillonite clay are modeled, and the results obtained are compared with experimental data. __________ Translated from Mekhanika Kompozitnykh Materialov, Vol. 42, No. 2, pp. 235–246, March–April, 2006.