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

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.

Automated summary

The present research investigated the mechanical properties of wood flour reinforced polyethylene polymer composites with varying wood flour size, aspect ratios, and mold injection temperature. Results showed that reducing the wood flour size decreased the tensile strength and modulus, flexural strength and impact energy, while increasing the flexural modulus. Additionally, increasing the injection molding temperature decreased the tensile strength and modulus, impact energy, while increasing the flexural strength and modulus. Thus, optimizing the injection molding temperature can improve the mechanical properties of the composite.