Kinetic modelling of radiochemical ageing of ethylene-propylene copolymers

Xavier Colin (1) , Emmanuel Richaud (1) , Jacques Verdu (1) , Carole Monchy-Leroy (2)

1 PIMM - Laboratoire Procédés et Ingénierie en Mécanique et Matériaux
2 EDF R&D - EDF R&D

A non-empirical kinetic model has been built for describing the general trends of radiooxidation kinetics of ethylene-propylene copolymers (EPR) at low γ dose rate and low temperature. It is derived from a radical chain oxidation mechanism composed of 30 elementary reactions: 19 relative to oxidation of methylene and methyne units plus 11 relative to their eventual cooxidation. The validity of this model has been already checked successfully elsewhere for one homopolymer: polyethylene (PE) (Khelidj et al., 2006a,b; Colin et al., 2007). In the present study, it is now checked for polypropylene (PP) and a series of three EPR differing essentially by their mole fraction of ethylene (37%, 73% and 86%) and their crystallinity degree (0%, 5% and 26%). Predicted values of radiation-chemical yields are in good agreement with experimental ones published in the last half past century

Mots clés: Cooxidation; Ethylene-propylene copolymers; Kinetic modelling; Radiochemical ageing

Domaines: Matériaux

Xavier Colin, Emmanuel Richaud, Jacques Verdu, Carole Monchy-Leroy. Kinetic modelling of radiochemical ageing of ethylene-propylene copolymers. Radiation Physics and Chemistry, 2010, 79 (3), pp.365-370. ⟨10.1016/j.radphyschem.2009.08.019⟩. ⟨hal-02457802⟩