Authors : M.H. Othman, W. Muhammad, W.N. Azrina, M.H.I. Ibrahim, S. Hasan, S.K. Hashim and S.Z. Khamis
Abstract: Now a days, plastic injection moulding for various types of polymer composites has been in high demand. However, an optimised processing condition is vital to ensure the desired properties of the product can be achieved.Therefore, this research was carried out to optimise the injection moulding processing condition of polypropylene-nanoclay-Gigantochloa Scortechinii. In this study, the L934 Taguchi Optimisation Method was used to obtain the optimum processing condition, which consist of the 9 trials, 3 levels and 4 processing conditions. The selected processing conditions were processing temperature, packing pressure, screw speed and filling time. In terms of material preparation, the Gigantochloa Scortechinii fibre was heated at a temperature of 120°C. The fibres were then mixed with polypropylene, polypropylene-grafted-maleic anhydride and nanoclay according to the formulation. The mixing process was performed using a roll mill mixer. Next, the flexural test samples were produced by using injection moulding process according to the orthogonal arrays setup from the Taguchi Optimisation Method. The flexural strength tests were done by using universal testing machine. As a result, the maximum flexural strength was 23.3380 MPa. The optimum value for processing temperature was 160°C, packing pressure was 112 MPa, screw speed was 144 rpm and the filling time was 3 seconds. In conclusion, the optimum processing condition has been achieved with factors that influenced flexural strength. This results can be used as a reference for future injection moulding manufacturing process.
M.H. Othman, W. Muhammad, W.N. Azrina, M.H.I. Ibrahim, S. Hasan, S.K. Hashim and S.Z. Khamis, 2016. Optimisation of Processing Condition for Flexural Strength of Polypropylene-Nanoclay-Gigantochloa Scortechinii Nanocomposites. Journal of Engineering and Applied Sciences, 11: 2668-2672.