Study of stress relaxation in polytetrafluoroethylene composites by cylindrical macroindentation

In the present work, the time-dependent mechanical behavior of three materials from the fluorocarbon family, including PTFE without filler, 15 vol.% regenerated graphite particles-filled PTFE, and 32 vol.% carbon and 3 vol.% graphite particles-filled PTFE, was investigated using cylindrical macroindentation. Indentation relaxation experiments with a cylindrical flat-tip indenter having a diameter of 1 mm were performed at three different strain levels. The generalized Maxwell model in terms of the Prony series and a time-dependent solution based on the power-law creep equation were used to model the viscoelastic response and to extract the time-dependent properties. The stress relaxation properties were found to improve with the addition of fillers. The unfilled PTFE exhibited the lowest stress-relaxation properties, whereas the 32 vol.% carbon and 3 vol.% graphite particles-filled PTFE composite showed the highest stress-relaxation properties.