The thermal stability of nylon 1010/polyhedral oligomeric silsesquioxane (PODS) composites prepared by melt blending was investigated with thermogravimetric analysis. The octavinyl POSS (vPOSS) and epoxycyclohexyl,l POSS (ePOSS) were used, and it was found chat nulon/vPOSS composites have higher integral procedure decomposition temperature and char yield at 800 degrees C than nylon/ePOSS composites. The Doyle-Ozawa (model-tree) and Friedman (model-fitting) methods were used to characterize the nonisothermal decomposition kinetics of nylon 1010 anti its composites. The activation energy (E-a), reaction order (n), and the natural logarithm of frequency factor of nulon 1010 were 267 kj/mol, 1.0, and 47 min (1), respectively, in nitrogen. After the addition of POSS, the E-a of nylon 1010 considerably increased, whereas 11 had less change. The E-a steadily increased with increasing conversion and with increasing heating rate. The lifetime. of nylon 1010 and its composites decreased with increasing temperature. At a given temperature, POSS significantly prolonged the lifetime of nylon 1010. (C) 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 113: 17-23, 2009