Investigating the use of low and high-density polyethylene blends with waste material from three-layer factory tube for the third layer of shock tubes.
Ali Khalili Gashtroudkhani, Mohammad Dahmardeh Ghaleno, Saeed Soltan Abadi, Maryam Pouyani
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引用次数: 0
Abstract
Polymeric shock tubes are now widely used in explosives systems for drilling and mining operations. Most shock tubes on the market consist of three layers of polymer, the first layer being Surlyn 8940 copolymer, the second layer Nucrel 31001 and the outer layer Borostar ME 6053 medium density polyethylene. Surlyn and Nucrel are usually sourced from DuPont, polyethylene from Charlotte Boralis. the main goal in this research is reducing the price of final shock tube and reuse the waste tube of plant (rejected shock tube) with improving the properties of product. For reaching to this goal, using polyethylene blend with available raw materials in the country and mixing them with rework from the shock tube production plant. For this purpose, different proportions of low- and high-Density polyethylene are blend using a twin-screw extruder and finally mixed with some of the factory's polymer rework. In the first phase, the low-density polyethylene LDPE 020, the high-density polyethylene HDPE HI 0500 and the filler calcium carbonate were blend in a twin-screw extruder and compounded with different percentages of 20/75/5, 30/65/5, 40/55/5 and 47/47/6 percent respectively. In the second phase, the resulting blend was mixed physically with 5, 10 and 15 percent three-layer tube rework (which was crushed with a crusher or pelletizer). The results showed that the 47/47/6 percent mixture had the best composition in terms of the production process, the properties of blend in terms of tensile strength (17/3 MPa), elongation percentage (458%) was suitable. In order to reduce the waste and cost of the product, the best processing results, product properties and costs are obtained when the above composition is mixed with crushed shock tube rework in a ratio of 90/10 (blend/rework). Tensile strength at break was 20/01 MPa and elongation at break was 478%. After evaluating the raw materials and accepting the results, the polymer blends were used on an industrial scale to produce shock tubes. The performance of the resulting shock tubes was then compared using various tests, including mechanical tests, oil penetration resistance, thermal shrinkage (in 60°C: upper 7% and in 80°C: upper 9%), burst strength, thermal aging (before aging:170 N, after aging: N5, N6, N7, N8: upper 170 N), and explosion velocity (upper 1890 m/s). The results showed that by using the polymer blend with rework, the mechanical properties of the shock tubes produced met the standard (tensile strength of more than 170 N/m2 and elongation percentage of more than 220). The results of the oil penetration resistance (45-50 h), burst strength and aging tests also showed that all shock tubes manufactured with the new third layer had acceptable properties and were on the same level as shock tubes made of Boralis polyethylene.
期刊介绍：
Frontiers in Chemistry is a high visiblity and quality journal, publishing rigorously peer-reviewed research across the chemical sciences. Field Chief Editor Steve Suib at the University of Connecticut is supported by an outstanding Editorial Board of international researchers. This multidisciplinary open-access journal is at the forefront of disseminating and communicating scientific knowledge and impactful discoveries to academics, industry leaders and the public worldwide.
Chemistry is a branch of science that is linked to all other main fields of research. The omnipresence of Chemistry is apparent in our everyday lives from the electronic devices that we all use to communicate, to foods we eat, to our health and well-being, to the different forms of energy that we use. While there are many subtopics and specialties of Chemistry, the fundamental link in all these areas is how atoms, ions, and molecules come together and come apart in what some have come to call the “dance of life”.
All specialty sections of Frontiers in Chemistry are open-access with the goal of publishing outstanding research publications, review articles, commentaries, and ideas about various aspects of Chemistry. The past forms of publication often have specific subdisciplines, most commonly of analytical, inorganic, organic and physical chemistries, but these days those lines and boxes are quite blurry and the silos of those disciplines appear to be eroding. Chemistry is important to both fundamental and applied areas of research and manufacturing, and indeed the outlines of academic versus industrial research are also often artificial. Collaborative research across all specialty areas of Chemistry is highly encouraged and supported as we move forward. These are exciting times and the field of Chemistry is an important and significant contributor to our collective knowledge.
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