Analysis of Mechanical and Electrical Characteristics of Polyester-based Foams.

Polymeric foams are more and more frequently used in several applications because of their good mechanical properties. In this paper the mechanical and electrical characteristics are analyzed in order to check the possibility of using such materials in the field of electrical insulation. In particular, the electrical and dielectric parameters as a function of frequency and temperature have been measured for polyester foams of several volume densities. Moreover, a comparison has been performed between the measured values of permittivity and those obtained on the basis of several theoretical models which have been proposed for dielectric mixtures.