Response of Polypropylene and its Nanocomposite with Synthetic Nanoclay under Electric Field and Temperature

It is a known fact that polypropylene is an important engineering material that is also used in electrical systems as a dielectric. The objective of this study is to evaluate the time-to-failure behavior of nanocomposite polypropylene and compare it against the plain polypropylene as a function of thermal and electric fields. The polypropylene used in this investigation is isotactic polypropylene, while its nanocomposite is 2% nanometric synthetic clay doped polypropylene. At each target temperature level, the samples are subjected to sinusoidal electric fields of 3 levels, namely 40 kV/mm, 50 kV/mm and 60 kV/mm. Based on the findings in this study, the plain polypropylene samples have higher time-to-failure than the nanocomposite polypropylene. It seems that having 2% nanometric synthetic clay in polypropylene does not show enhancement in time-to-failure.