DETERMINATION OF SPECIFIC HEAT OF LOW CONDUCTIVE POLYMERS USING LOCALLY MADE LOW COST CALORIMETER AND STUDY OF MECHANICAL PROPERTIES OF POLYPROPYLENE

Abstract: To evaluate the performance of locally made plastic box calorimeter, developed method heat (Q) vs. temperature (T) was used for measurement of specific heat. Specific heat of the three different types of pure polypropylene (pure PP beads, single rolled PP sheets and double rolled PP sheets) and jute fiber reinforced (5%) polypropylene samples were determined. The measured specific heat of samples were showed excellent agreement with the literature value. The mechanical properties like tensile strength, percent elongation at break& young's modulus were measured for corresponding samples. The tensile strength as well as elongation at break was decreased as the rolling number of PP sheets increased but at the same time young's modulus showed increasing trends.

Keywords: Specific heat, single and double rolled PP, tensile strength; elongation at break, young's modulus.