Romain Léger

Influence of impurities on the performances of HIPS recycled from Waste Electric and Electronic Equipment (WEEE).

In order to produce a high quality recycled material from real deposits of electric and electronic equipment, the rate of impurities in different blended grades of reclaimed materials has to be reduced. Setting up industrial recycling procedures requires to deal with the main types of polymers presents in WEEE (Waste Electric and Electronic Equipment), particularly High Impact Polystyrene (HIPS) as well as other styrenic polymers such as Acrylonitrile-Butadiene-Styrene (ABS), Polystyrene (PS) but also polyolefin which are present into WEEE deposit as Polypropylene (PP). The production of a substantial quantity of recycled materials implies to improve and master the compatibility of different HIPS grades. The influence of polymeric impurities has to be studied since automatic sorting techniques are not able to remove completely these fractions. Investigation of the influence of minor ABS, PS and PP polymer fractions as impurities has been done on microstructure and mechanical properties of HIPS using environmental scanning electron microscopy (ESEM) in order to determine the maximum tolerated rate for each of them into HIPS after sorting and recycling operations.

Incorporation of Organomodified Layered Silicates and Silica in Thermoplastic Elastomers in Order to Improve Tear Strength

Organomodified layered silicates and silicas have been incorporated in thermoplastic elastomers such as styrene-ethylene-butylene-styrene copolymers (SEBS) and polyurethanes (PU) in order to improve mechanical properties - especially tear strength. The organically modified layered silicates used were Cloisite® 30B, a montmorillonite modified with a ternary ammonium salt with hydroxyls as end groups and Nanofil®2 which is organically modified by long chains of hydrocarbon and benzyl groups. Sepiolite, a natural clay with fibrous morphology was also used. The silicas incorporated are Aerosil 300, hydrophilic fumed silica and Aerosil R202, hydrophobic fumed silica. nanoparticles are incorporated between 1 and 5 weight percent. A compatibilizer SEBS grafted with maleic anhydride has been incorporated in some of the formulations for a better dispersion of some of the nanoparticles. Different ways of incorporation have been investigated. For SEBS formulations, melt blends of SEBS pellets and clays have been prepared with an internal mixer and then films have been casted. For polyurethanes, solvent blending of polyols and clays were carried out in a vessel and then, compression molding of the blend with diisocyanates was made to synthesize polyurethanes. Materials have been compared on the basis of normalized tear test and sequenced tensile test. Mechanical parameters, as stabilization ratio (Mullins effect) and viscoelastic ratio, have been defined by integration of the stress-strain curves obtained. An interesting improvement of tear strength was observed for modified materials.

Constitutive modeling of stress softening and permanent set in a porcine skin tissue: Impact of the storage preservation

Prior to testing, soft tissues are usually maintained in different media and additives (solution, air, cryopreservant…) under various environment conditions (temperature, storage duration….). In many cases, results from mechanical tests performed on these stored tissues are supposed to be as closed as possible to the fresh ones. In the present work, cyclic tensile tests were performed with increasing values of strain on porcine skin tissues (excised following the Langers lines) to enhance tissues mechanical nonlinearity such as softening behavior and permanent set. Optical methods were used to follow the in-plane strains evolution. These latest values were used as data to simulate the structural behavior of these heterogeneous materials. The numerical simulation is based on the constitutive pseudo-elastic model accounting for the softening behavior as well as the permanent set. As a result, reliable material parameters were extracted from the experiments/model comparison for each storage solution. The result of this study reveals that preservation conditions must be carefully chosen: at low strain the tissues store in fridge in a saline solution during a short time, or in freezer (-80°C) in water with cryopreservant and the fresh one lead to a similar mechanical response. For larger strain, the freezing (-80°C) in water with cryopreservant is the only procedure for which the tissue recovers its initial behavior.

Impact on peel strength, tensile strength and shear viscosity of the addition of functionalized low density polyethylene to a thermoplastic polyurethane sheet calendered on a polyester fabric:

Coated technical textiles are widely used for several industrial applications. Most of these coated fabrics are made with a polyester fabric and a polyvinyl chloride (PVC) coating but in order to reduce the environmental impact, the producers are willing to substitute PVC by thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU). However, a technological lock of the calendering of TPU on polyester fabric is the ability to get a good adhesion of the coating on the fabric. Producers could increase the temperatures of extrusion of the coating but TPU have a short range of extrusion temperatures making it difficult to extrude. One solution is to make a blend with another polymer which has a higher extrusion temperature range. In the present work, the studies of the addition of low density polyethylene (LDPE) and linear low density polyethylene grafted maleic anhydride (LLDPE-g-Ma) in polyurethane coating on the tensile strength of the sheet and on the peel strength with a polyester fabric have been studied as well as the influence of the extrusion temperature. SEM observations, FTIR spectrums, and viscosity measurements have been performed to understand the behavior of the different blends. Results show that extrusion temperature and penetration depth of the coating in the fabric have a positive influence on the peel strength.

High speed imaging for assessment of impact damage in natural fibre biocomposites

The use of Digital Image Correlation has been generally limited to the estimation of mechanical properties and fracture behaviour at low to moderate strain rates. High speed cameras dedicated to ballistic testing are often used to measure the initial and residual velocities of the projectile but rarely for damage assessment. The evaluation of impact damage is frequently achieved post-impact using visual inspection, ultrasonic C-scan or other NDI methods. Ultra-high speed cameras and developments in image processing have made possible the measurement of surface deformations and stresses in real time during dynamic cracking. In this paper, a method is presented to correlate the force- displacement data from the sensors to the slow motion tracking of the transient failure cracks using real-time high speed imaging. Natural fibre reinforced composites made of flax fibres and polypropylene matrix was chosen for the study. The creation of macro-cracks during the impact results in the loss of stiffness and a corresponding drop in the force history. However, optical instrumentation shows that the initiation of damage is not always evident and so the assessment of damage requires the use of a local approach. Digital Image Correlation is used to study the strain history of the composite and to identify the initiation and progression of damage. The effect of fly-speckled texture on strain measurement by image correlation is also studied. The developed method can be used for the evaluation of impact damage for different composite materials.

Effects of Water Ageing on the Mechanical Properties of Flax and Glass Fibre Composites: Degradation and Reversibility

Mechanical properties of flax-fibre reinforced composites (FFRC) are strongly affected by water ageing compared to glass-fibre reinforced composites (GFRC). This study highlights the influence of water absorption during immersion at 30 °C on mechanical properties of unsaturated polyester reinforced composites . Flax-fibre composites showed a Fickian absorption behaviour and a water uptake 15 times higher than that of glass-fibre composites. GFRC’s tensile modulus and maximum stress were slightly affected by water uptake while FFRC’s tensile modulus decreased by 37 %, and ultimate stress increased by 34 %. A silane-based chemical treatment (1 % compared to flax fibres) was applied onto flax fibres. Water uptake was slightly reduced by 9 % while tensile modulus at saturation was enhanced by 22 % on treated FFRC compared to untreated ones. Moreover, the complete recovery of the tensile modulus after desiccation suggests that ageing was mainly reversible: fibre and matrix plasticizing phenomena occurred during immersion at 30 °C. No damage was noticed but composites’ initial properties changed with the action of water: further crosslinking of matrix and release of fibre’s small cell-walls components into water were observed. Finally, the drying conditions influenced the return to the initial state before ageing insofar the flax fibres partially lost their initial humidity.