Experimental design to enhance the surface appearance, the internal structure, and the shear stresses of injected and metallized polycarbonate/acrylonitrile–butadiene‐styrene parts

Abstract

Polycarbonate (PC) and acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene (ABS) possess thermal and mechanical properties, which make them materials of choice for automotive components. These properties have presented PC/ABS as an eligible replacement for metals in automotive industry. The aim of this study was to explore a new approach to determine the optimum conditions for obtaining quality and shear stresses of the injected and metalized PC/ABS parts. For this purpose, the following six injection-molding parameters such as material temperature (T ma ), injection pressure (P inj ), holding pressure (P h ), mold temperature (T mo ), holding time (t h ), and cooling time (t c ) were considered at four different values. The effect of the injection parameters studied has been analyzed through the quality and the shear stresses values of the injected and metallized PC/ABS specimens. Optical microscopic and confocal laser scanning microscope (CLSM) results demonstrate that the occurrence of some defects such as weld line, blister, poor adhesion, metal residue, sand scratch. Moreover, scanning electron microscope (SEM) findings show the presence of core defects and solidified pellets. Shear stresses vary between 3.78 and 5.8 MPa for the injected specimens and 4.5 and 6.4 MPa for the metallized specimens. The optimum injection parameter combinations were conditioned by producing flawless injected and metallized PC/ABS parts having a significant shear stress value. Thus, the optimum combinations consists of: a T ma of 260 C, a P inj ranging between 30 and 50 bar, a P h ranging between 20 and 25 bar, a T mo of 40 C, a t h ranging between 8 and 14 sec. and a t c of 25 sec. These findings may have interesting applications in automotive part industry.

Mechanical, viscoelastic, and biodegradability characteristics of ramie fibre‐reinforced acrylonitrile butadiene styrene composites

“…19 PC/ABS composites find their purpose in the automotive industry as substitutes for metals. 20 To the best of our knowledge, there have been only a few studies regarding the biodegradation of ABS polymers. ABS and other similar polymers find extensive use in the automotive and engineering industries.…”

“…However, the addition of compatibilizers along with heat stabilizers has proven to be highly effective in improving the mechanical properties of these composites 19 . PC/ABS composites find their purpose in the automotive industry as substitutes for metals 20 …”

A methodology for determination the inlet velocity in injection molding simulations

“…This procedure ties the accuracy of the results with the knowledge and experience of those who set up the simulations [24] . However, there are studies that prove that, in molten polymer injection processes, depending on the gate inlet velocity, the product may suffer injection failures [25,26] . Therefore, great care must be taken to properly insert the inlet injection velocity (when such boundary conditions are preset), in order to maintain the accuracy of the results and minimize post-processing errors [27] .…”