Flame resistant semicaromatic polyamide resin composition and articles therefrom

A flame retardant polyamide resin composition, comprising:

• (a) about 30 to about 80 weight percent of a polyamide component comprising about a blend of about 40 to 85 weight percent of one or more semi-crystalline polyamides and about 15 to 60 weight percent of one or more amorphous polyamides having repeating units derived from a carboxylic acid component and an aliphatic diamine component, the carboxylic component comprising at least 55 mole percent, based on the carboxylic acid component, of isophthalic acid, and the aliphatic diamine component being selected from the group consisting of hexamethylene diamine, a mixture of hexamethylene diamine and 2-methyl pentamethylene diamine, and a mixture of hexamethylene diamine and 2-ethyltetramethylene diamine;
• in which the aliphatic diamine component contains at least 40 mole percent of hexamethylene diamine, based on the aliphatic diamine component;
• (b) at least one flame retardant comprising one or more of a phosphinate of the formula (I);
• a disphosphinate of the formula (II);
• and polymers of (I) and/or (II)
• wherein R1 and R2 are identical or different and are C1-C6 alkyl, linear or branched, and/or aryl;
• R3 is C1-C10-alkylene, linear or branched, C6-C10-arylene, -alkylarylene or -arylalkylene;
• M is calcium ions, magnesium ions, aluminum ions and/or zinc ions;
• m is 2 to 3;
• n is 1 or 3;
• and x is 1 or 2;
• (c) zinc borate;
• and
• (d) about 10 to about 60 weight percent of glass fiber having non-circular section,
• wherein the weight percentages of (a) and (d) are based on the total weight of the composition;
• wherein flame retardant (b) is present in an amount that is about 10 to about 45 percent of the weight of polyamide (a);
• and wherein zinc borate (c) is present in an amount that is about 0.5 to about 5 percent of the weight of flame retardant (b).