Investigating the effect of foam properties on the attenuation of coaxial cables with foamed polyethylene dielectric

A study on fabrication of nanocomposite polyethylene foam through extrusion foaming procedure

Foaming a polymer not only turns it into a lightweight material but also gives some special properties to it. However, the most important issue is controlling the foaming process to achieve a desirable structure with high cell density and low relative density. In the present study, the extrusion foaming process of polyethylene was studied through stepwise amendments. An innovative extrusion system was designed and implemented to produce extrusion foams under different material and process conditions using N2 as blowing agent. In the first step, the final cooling condition was investigated. The air-cooling condition led to a higher cell density/lower cell size compared to the water-cooling condition although a higher relative density was obtained. In the second step, the effects of the addition of talc and the synergetic effect of talc/nanoclay at different contents were investigated in detail. The hybrid of talc/nanoclay had a noticeably improving effect on the cellular structure. In the third step, the effects of processing parameters including the die temperature and screw speed were studied on the foam properties. Finally, up to 49.4% decrease in the relative density of samples was observed, also cell densities up to 2.5 × 104 cell/cm3 and cell sizes as small as 280 µm were achieved.

Effect of Chemical Blowing Agent on the PVC Cellular Coating Extrusion

Depending on the type and application, the coatings of power, electric, telecommunication cables as well as other types of conduits are made of various kinds of polymer plastics. However, most often, because of good mechanical properties and many other advantages, they are first of all made from polyvinyl chlorine (PVC). This paper contains characteristics of the developed cellular extrusion of cable coatings, as well as specification of the blowing agent (BA) used and selected research results of the obtained cellular extrusion product. In technological tests the coating extrusion technological line was used. The material was modified with a new blowing agent of exothermic distribution of process characteristics, which was introduced into the material in quantities from 0.2 to 0.6% wt. The amount of blowing agent used has a direct impact on the density and structure of the received result for the extrusion of modified polymers. The cellular structure of the cellular coatings was presented. The results of the study are thin-walled properties of single- and double-layer cellular outer coatings, forming an outer surface on a steel wire. The research on the structure of manufactured materials, density and the degree of porosity, water and oil absorptivity, mechanical strength is presented.