Investigation of Wood Flour Size, Aspect Ratios, and Injection Molding Temperature on Mechanical Properties of Wood Flour/Polyethylene Composites

Mohammad E Golmakani; Tomasz Wiczenbach; Mohammad Malikan; Reza Aliakbari; Victor A Eremeyev

doi:10.3390/ma14123406

Investigation of Wood Flour Size, Aspect Ratios, and Injection Molding Temperature on Mechanical Properties of Wood Flour/Polyethylene Composites

Materials (Basel). 2021 Jun 20;14(12):3406. doi: 10.3390/ma14123406.

Authors

Mohammad E Golmakani¹, Tomasz Wiczenbach², Mohammad Malikan², Reza Aliakbari¹, Victor A Eremeyev^{2

3}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Mechanical Engineering, Mashhad Branch, Islamic Azad University, Mashhad 9187144123, Iran.
² Department of Mechanics of Materials and Structures, Gdansk University of Technology, 80-233 Gdansk, Poland.
³ Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Architecture, Università degli Studi di Cagliari, Via Marengo, 2, 09123 Cagliari, Italy.

Abstract

In the present research, wood flour reinforced polyethylene polymer composites with a coupling agent were prepared by injection molding. The effects of wood flour size, aspect ratios, and mold injection temperature on the composites' mechanical properties were investigated. For the preparation of the polymer composites, five different formulations were created. The mechanical properties including tensile strength and the modulus, flexural strength and the modulus, and impact energy were measured. To investigate the changes in the properties resulting from different compositions, mechanical static and impact testing was performed. The obtained results indicate that by reducing the flour size, the tensile strength and modulus, flexural strength, and impact energy were reduced. In contrast, the flexural modulus increased. Furthermore, with the increment of injection molding temperature, the tensile strength and the modulus and the impact energy of the specimens were reduced. On the other hand, the flexural strength and the modulus increased. Thus, an optimized amount of injection molding temperature can provide improvements in the mechanical properties of the composite.

Keywords: flexural modulus; flexural strength; impact energy; injection molding temperature; polyethylene; tensile modulus; tensile strength; wood flour size.