3.2.2. Mechanical properties
Reinforcing fillers are used extensively to improve
stiffness of thermoplastic elastomers, but usually with
brittleness increase. The tensile stress-strain curves of the
PP/SEBS/oil matrix and its composites show typical elastomer
strain hardening behavior with an abrupt stress increase
after 200% strain. According to the literature, the
reason for this strain hardening lies in molecular orientation
of the amorphous domains at large strains [4]. In fact,
the resulting tensile strength of the matrix composition is
low, as shown in Fig. 5.