Indian Journal of Science and Technology

Abstract

One ofthe key factors that made theplastics attractive for engineering applications is ability ofproperties increasing through reinforcing with fibers. Wood-plastic composites combined by wood particles with polymers. In this research, injection molding ofwood-PVCcompositeswithNitrileButadieneRubber (NBR) as rubbershave beenstudiedexperimentally andthe effect process parameters on mechanical properties of the composites has been investigated. According to the parameters and their levels, including injection pressure, mold temperature and rubber content each in three levels; a Taguchi L18 standard orthogonal array was selected to design of experiment. Samples were melt blended via a twin-screw extruder and then molded using injection molding. Tensile test had been carries out on specimens and the results were analyzed using Taguchi Signal to Noise ratio (S/N) and Analysis of Variance (ANOVA). The results of tensile tests indicated that with increasing NBR percentage in the samples, tensile strength and elastic modulus of composite increased significantly. Results also revealed that NBR content is the most effective parameter affecting mechanical properties of wood-PVC-NBR composites and injection pressure and mold temperature has no noticeable effects on response quality characteristics. According to results by increasing 9 wt% of NBR, tensile strength and elastic modulus improved about 33.5% and 64% respectively.
Keywords: Injection Molding, Mechanical Properties, PVC-NBR, Taguchi Method, Wood-Plastic Composite