The efficiency of material consumption is an important consideration for production processes; this is particularly true for processes that use waste materials. Dry ice extrusion serves as a good example. An examination of the literature on this subject leads to an observation that the commercially available machines for dry ice compression are characterized by a high value of working force. Consequently, the effectiveness of the source consumption, electric energy and carbon dioxide, is very low. The subject of the experimental research presented in the article is the influence of the density of dry ice on the value of Young's modulus. The first part of the article presents the test methodology and the special test stand that was developed to accommodate the unique characteristics of solid-state carbon dioxide. The test results present the characteristics of compaction and relaxation used as the basis for determining the value of Young's modulus. Based on the test results obtained for various material density values, the characteristics of Young's modulus are developed and graphed as a function of the density. The presented results are important for furthering the research on the development of extrusion and compaction processes; for example, using the Drucker-Prager/Cap model for the purpose of optimizing the geometrical characteristics of the work assembly components.
Keywords: Young’s modulus; compaction; dry ice; energy consumption; working load estimation.