Recycling and performance of thermoplastic composites under static loading
Thermoplastic composites (TPC) are gaining popularity in aerospace and automotive and many other industries. This is because of TPCs unique combination of properties including low density, high stiffness and strength that are comparable to high performance materials such as metal alloys. TPCs als...
Saved in:
Main Author: | |
---|---|
Other Authors: | |
Format: | Final Year Project |
Language: | English |
Published: |
Nanyang Technological University
2024
|
Subjects: | |
Online Access: | https://hdl.handle.net/10356/181813 |
Tags: |
Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
|
Institution: | Nanyang Technological University |
Language: | English |
Summary: | Thermoplastic composites (TPC) are gaining popularity in aerospace and automotive and
many other industries. This is because of TPCs unique combination of properties including
low density, high stiffness and strength that are comparable to high performance materials
such as metal alloys. TPCs also offer many other advantages including high customizability,
impact resistance and excellent chemical resistance. The increasing popularity in TPCs is
leading to high production rates which leads to huge amounts of waste throughout the
products’ lifetime. Conventional methods of TPC waste disposal bring severe
environmental harm and are economically wasteful for industries. Recycling TPCs is an
effective way to address these issues. This project’s aim is to improve the recycling process
of TPCs in terms of efficiency and mechanical aspects. Carbon fiber-polyamide 6 (CF-PA6)
TPC was specifically fabricated, recycled, tested and studied in this report due to its rising
popularity in the aerospace and automotive industries. The pristine CF-PA6 parts were
fabricated through sequence stacking and followed by a hot compression process. The
waste from pristine CF-PA6 was collected and recycled. The recycling process was
modified and executed multiple times with the goal of achieving a mechanically stronger
recycling product while still considering the process efficiency. The recycling process led to
6 batches (random, long-8gPA6, long-16gPA6, square-8gPA6, long-8gPA6-1CF, long8gPA6-2CF). The pristine and recycled TPCs were then statically tested and showed that
longitudinal columns of CF-PA6 with 8g of pristine PA6 and 1 CF fabric provided the best
flexural properties with 318.5 MPa and 26336.5 MPa for flexural strength and flexural
modulus respectively. In terms of percentage loss with respect to pristine, the percentages
are 40.6% and 62.5% respectively. The test also showed that longitudinal columns of CFPA6 with randomly laid PA6 mixed with carbon fiber provided the best compression
properties with 88.0 MPa, 88.2 MPa and 3074.2 MPa for compression strength, yield
strength and modulus of elasticity respectively. In terms of percentage loss with respect to
pristine, the percentages are 17.7%, 15.5% and 37.4%. The results showed that
longitudinal columns of recycled CF-PA6 was the better configuration to attain good
mechanical properties. It was also the easier and faster configuration to recycled CF-PA6.
It was also concluded from the flexural and compression test results that adding too much
pristine PA6 into the recycled parts decreases the mechanical properties of the recycled
piece. The also results showed that adding pristine carbon fiber fabric will significantly
improve only the flexural properties and not the compression properties. |
---|