Study of rheological, thermal, and mechanical behavior of reprocessed polyamide 6

The effect of reprocessing Polyamide 6 (PA6) has been studied in this article. To simulate recycled PA, we reprocessed virgin PA through five cycles. The PA 6 has undergone mechanical, thermal and rheological characterization after the various cycles of reprocessing in order to evaluate the corresponding properties and correlate them with the number of cycles undergone. In order to widen our injection simulation analysis by computer (CAE: Computer Aided Engineering) of these new materials, it was necessary to determine the viscosity using a mathematical model; in this case the Cross-WLF, to determine the relevant parameters. Our results show that tensile strength, elongation at break and hardness remain practically constant, while the charpy impact decreases as the number of reprocessing cycles increases. The effects of reprocessing on the material may decrease the rheological properties; specifically the viscosity of the material decreases with increasing processing cycles. The thermal properties are also influenced with the reprocessed material. The crystallinity increases and the degradation reaction will be advanced to increase the reprocessing cycle. POLYM. ENG. SCI., 2013. (c) 2012 Society of Plastics Engineers