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DOI:
10.1016/j.jclepro.2016.07.028
Reference:
JCLP 7600
To appear in:
29 June 2016
Please cite this article as: Gu F, Hall P, Miles NJ, Development of composites based on recycled
polypropylene for injection moulding automobile parts using hierarchical clustering analysis and principal
component estimate, Journal of Cleaner Production (2016), doi: 10.1016/j.jclepro.2016.07.028.
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Development of composites based on recycled polypropylene
for injection moulding automobile parts using hierarchical
clustering analysis and principal component estimate
Fu GU, Philip HALL*, and N J MILES
Faculty of Science and Engineering, University of Nottingham, Ningbo, China
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researchers are tackling with this issue and recycled plastics are still ending up in
low-value products. This paper presents a novel method to adapt recycled plastic for
demanding industrial applications by designing suitable formulae which satisfy the
technical requirements of the applications. To illustrate the proposed method which
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then the total number of requirements were reduced. Effects of each component
were identified numerically by principal component estimate, and a corresponding
linear regression model was obtained. The linear regression model was compared to
other linear regression models which obtained by other mathematic techniques, and
it has been proved to be the best model which has the smallest gap between
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predicted values and experimental results. Optimal formulae were calculated via
linear programming with the objects of minimising material cost and satisfying the
reduced technical requirements of selected automobile parts. In verification tests,
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the experimental performance of the obtained formulae closely matched the model
predictions. The proposed formula design method is novel and original, and it is
shown to be effective and efficient in designing recycled plastic based composites
for demanding industrial applications.
Keyword: Manufacturing; Decision support system; Polypropylene; Principal
component estimate; Hierarchical cluster analysis
1. Introduction
Plastic, which is usually synthesized using non-renewable fossil resources, is one of
the major materials used in modern life. With a continuous growth over 50 years,
the global plastic production in 2013 rose to 299 million tonnes (PlasticsEurope,
2014). According to the statistics (PlasticsEurope, 2014), 25.2 million tonnes of
post-consumer plastics waste in 2012, only 26% is recycled and 36% is recovered
Tel: +86 574 8818 0018
Email:Philip.Hall@nottingham.edu.cn
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as energy resources while 38% still went to landfill. Toxic compounds including
persistent organic pollutants (POPs), such as dioxins and polychlorinated biphenyls
(PCBs), are emitted from the energy recovery processes with exhaust gases
(Menada et al., 1998; Caneghem et al., 2010; Font et al., 2011). The treatment of
POP emission in those processes is expensive and ineffective, as dioxins will be
reproduced afterward (Grosso, 2009). Thus, energy recovery is not encouraged due
to environmental concerns (Huang et al., 2013). Due to plastic's low density, landfill
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of waste plastic takes up a huge amount of valuable land and causes other
environmental problems, such as POP leakage in surface soil (Melnyk et al., 2015)
and generation of greenhouse gases (Karanjekar et al., 2015). Despite odorous
emissions released during meltdown of plastics can affect environmental and
human health (Tsai et al., 2009; Huang et al., 2013), recycling of waste plastics is
economically viable (Al-Salem et al., 2009; Meng et al., 2015). From environmental
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protection perspective, recycling plastic could reduce 80% greenhouse gas emission
(Makuta et al., 2000) and 24% carbon footprint (Dormer et al., 2013) of material
production. Plastic scrap can be considered as a renewable source of material which
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An important way to promote the recycling rate of plastic waste is to extend the use
of recycled plastic in manufacturing (Gu et al., 2016). Due to chemical and physical
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changes in the molecular structures or contaminations during the first life, recycled
plastic tends to have less desirable properties which limit their application (Ehrig,
1992; Gu et al., 2014; Sommerhuber et al., 2016). A number of different methods
were proposed to promote the performance of recycled plastic, such as additives
(Bahlouli et al., 2006; Putra et al., 2009; Sommerhuber et al., 2016),
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compatibilisation (Bertin and Robin, 2002; Forteln et al., 2002; Luzuriaga et al.,
2011) and procedure/formula optimisation (Khan et al., 2010; Gu et al., 2014;
Homkhiew et al., 2014). Before being used in manufacturing industry, material
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2013). Thus, despite countless methods which aim at improving recycled plastic
have been reported, most of the recycled plastic in the current market still ends up
in producing low-value items, such as trash bags and bins (WRAP, 2010).
With the purpose of adapting recycled plastic in more demanding industrial
applications, a novel method is proposed to design recycled plastic based
composites using a combination of hierarchical clustering analysis (HCA) and
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In this study, the combined method is proposed with the aim of designing suitable
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composites was carried out based upon the models for satisfying both technical
requirements and minimum material cost criteria. A verification testing set was
carried out to prove the effective of the proposed method. By the utilisation of this
method, the use of recycled plastic can be extended to production of high-value
products, which will promote the overall recycling rate of plastic scrap and reduce
environmental impact resulting from landfill or combustion. The schematic diagram
of the method proposed in this study is shown as Fig.1. The proposed formula
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(1). Reducing the number of initial compositions and experimental trials effectively
and efficiently;
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(3). Identifying the effects of each component in the composite numerically via the
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linear regression model of components' effects obtained by PCE, and verifying the
model by comparison of model predictions and experimental results;
(4). Verifying the optimal formulae acquired via the proposed method by verification
tests to ensure all desirable properties have met the technical requirements while
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Initial Composition
Groups
Required
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Experimental Data
Data
PCE
HCA
Linear Regression
Model
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Standardized Data
Clustered Multiple
Properties
Composition
Industrial
Formulae
Requirements
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Fig.1.
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Preprocessing
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obtained from our industrial collaborator with their testing standards and testing
parameters (Tianqiang, 2014), which are shown in Table 1. The examples of the
engine cover and the fenders are shown in Fig.2 and Fig.3 respectively.
Table 1.
Application
Tensile
Flexural
Flexural
Strength
Modulus
Strength
(MPa)
(MPa)
(MPa)
Charpy
Impact
Strength
-2
(KJ m )
Melt Flow
Index
(g 10min-1)
Temperature of
Deflection under
Load
(C)
Meter Holder
20
2400
35
40
85
Engine Cover
20
2200
35
40
92
Fender
22
2000
30
60
90
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Testing
Standards
ISO527[26]
Gauge
Testing
speed: 50
mm min
ISO178
[27]
[27]
Gauge
Gauge
speed: 2
speed: 2
mm
mm
min-1
min-1
-1
ISO1133
ISO179 [28]
[29]
Hammer
ISO75 [30]
Load:
selection: 7.5
230C,
-1
J, 3.8m sec
2.16kg
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Parameters
ISO178
Fig.2.
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Fig.3.
The fenders
In this study, the technical requirements of meter holder, engine cover and fender
can be classified into three categories: mechanical, rheological and thermal. The
mechanical properties include tensile/flexural/Charpy impact strengths (TS/FS/IS)
and flexural modulus (FM), the rheological property is melt flow index (MFI), and the
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thermal property is referred to temperatures of deflection under load (TDL). The
material for meter holder to form the instrumental panel and requires the highest
level of surface rigidity (highest flexural modulus and strength), while the material
for fender requires more impact resistance. The engine cover is supposed to
withstand a higher working temperature, thus higher TDL value is expected.
Additionally, due to the size of the engine cover is the largest of all three parts, a
better rheological property is needed for injection moulding due to the
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corresponding mould capacity and cycle time limit, which resulting in the highest
MFI required value.
The upper and lower limits of range for the possible compositions are shown in Table
2, which were obtained based upon past experience, previous literature (Bahlouli et
Table 2.
Restrictions of compositions in composites
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al., 2006) and communication with the industrial collaborator (Tianqiang, 2015).
Restriction (wt.%)
Recycled Content
60
20
Compatibiliser
3Compatibiliser10
3. Experimental Approach
3.1. Materials
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Composition
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The virgin PP material (VPP) used in this study is a type of block co-polymer mainly
being used for manufacturing automobile parts electric and electronic devices or
pipelines, with a trade-name of PPB-MO2-V and manufactured by Yangzi
Petrochemical Co., Ltd. These pellets have an average of particle size of 3.0 mm,
density of 0.9 g cm-3, see Fig.4 (left), and were used as received. The recycled PP
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material (RPP) used in this study is grey pellet which recovered from white
post-customer storage boxes and other plastic furniture. The recyclates were
purchased from a Ningbo recycling plant. The pellets have an average of particle
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size of 3.0 mm, density of 1.0 g cm-3, see Fig.4 (right), and were used as received.
Fig.4.
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The virgin and recycled PP materials: left virgin PP; right recycled PP
There were two types of particle fillers selected in this study talc and OMMT, as the
practice of adding both materials into recycled plastic to promote the performance
has been carried out frequently (Bahlouli et al., 2006; Zhang et al., 2009). The talc
used in this study was acquired from a Ningbo factory, which has an average of
particle size of 12.5 m, a density of 2.7 g cm-3, as shown in Fig.5 (left), and is used
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as received. The OMMT used in this study was acquired from Yoshida Chemical
co.ltd., Shenzhen, and has an average of size of 37.5 m, a density of 1.7 g cm-3, as
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Fig.5.
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The talc and OMMT materials used in this study: left talc; right OMMT
MAPP is one of the most frequently used compatibilisers which improves the
interface reactions between different layers, such as virgin-recycled PP and various
additives (Bahlouli et al., 2006; Gu et al., 2014; Homkhiew et al., 2014). The MAPP
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used in this study was acquired from Nanjing Deba Chemical Co.Ltd, which has an
average of particle size of 2.5 mm, a density of 0.9 g cm-3, with the grafted rate of
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c3+c420
3c510
The initial groups of various proportional compositions are shown in Table 4. The
selected formulae are unlike the selected formulae in existing articles (Soury et al.,
2009; Zolfaghari et al., 2013; Homkhiew et al., 2014) which contain all possible
detailed compositions. There are two specific rules in this composition selection
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which were proposed for promoting both computational efficiency and analysing
completeness:
(1). Each component must combine with every other component at least once.
(2). The total appearance of each component must no less than the total number of
components.
Table 4.
The initial compositions of blends (wt.%)
VPP(c1)
RPP(c2)
Talc(c3)
99
90
OMMT(c4)
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Trial.No
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The above rules were adapted from Taguchi method (Ross, 1996).
MAPP(c5)
96
15
10
80
15
70
30
80
3
4
70
8
9
10
10
10
50
40
10
55
15
15
20
30
25
20
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(Stark and Matuana, 2003; Soury et al., 2009; Zolfaghari et al., 2013; Homkhiew et
al., 2014), the total number of experimental trials was significantly reduced, thus
the relating cost and environmental impact could also be reduced as well as the
computational complexity. The effectiveness of these composition selection rules
would be proved in following sections by comparingpredictions and experimental
results.
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were increased from 175oC to 200oC from the hopper to the 3rd barrel, the
temperatures of the last three barrels were remained at 200oC, while the die
temperature was set at 200oC. The screw rotation speed was set at 180 rpm, and
the total mass flow rate was 5 kg h-1. Blended strands were extruded into a water
bath for cooling and pelletized.
The extruded pellets were dried in a dry oven at 85oC for 12 h with constant air flow
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before being fed into the injection moulding machine. The purpose of oven drying is
to keep moisture content in plastic pellets below 1 wt.%. Then, these pellets are
injection moulded into ISO standard test specimens using a Haitian MA1200/370
injection moulding machine. There are 2 (tensile pieces) (ISO 527-2:2012) or 4
(flexural, impact and thermal stability pieces) (ISO 75-2:2004; ISO 178:2010; ISO
179-2:2010) test specimens per single injection moulding processing cycle. The
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time in moulds of 5 s; (5). A mould temperature was set at 50oC. All these
processing parameters were set based real automobile production (Tianqiang,
2015), as a few necessary modifications were made to adapt the recycled materials.
During this study, all these processing parameters were maintained constant for
yielding comparable results.
3.3. Tests
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The tests were carried out in accordance with the requirements and methods in
Table 1, as selected mechanical, rheological and thermal properties were tested
respectively.
3.3.1. Mechanical
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Machine (model TCS-2000NE) at a room temperature of 23oC and at 50 % R.H.
The impact property tested is the Charpy impact strength (IS), gained in accordance
with ISO179 Charpy Impact specifications (ISO 179-2:2010). The span is set at 62
mm with the hammer of 7.5 J and impact speed of 3.8 m s-1 according to Table 1,
performed on a Gotech Impact Tester (model GT-7045-NHR) at a room temperature
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Melt flow index test was conducted to determine the basic rheological behaviour of
the blends in accordance with ISO1133 Melt Mass-flow Rate specifications (ISO
1133-1:2011), measured in g/10 min under a load of 2.16 kg at 230C according
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In automobile applications, materials are required for thermal stability, i.e. to retain
their properties and structure unchanged for a longer time under elevated
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temperatures. Test for determining the temperature of deflection under load were
conducted using an HDT-VICAT test processor (model CEAST 6911.000,) according
to ISO 75 (ISO 75-2:2004), with a constant heating rate of 50oC h-1 and a load of
0.45 MPa according to Table 1. The samples were immersed into silicon oil and
preheated for 4 min at 40oC. 6 sample pieces were tested and the average result
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taken if the coefficient of variance met the required limits (5 % in accordance with
ISO2602 specifications, ISO 2602:1980).
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4. Method Procedure
The proposed formula design method consisted of three major sections: data
preprocessing, HCA and PCE, and their MATLAB (version 2012b) routines were
developed to obtain the results.
4.1. Data Preprocessing
According to the schematic design procedure shown in Fig.1, data preprocessing is
the first step of the schematic procedure. In this process, the data preprocessing
procedure is consisting of three following steps.
(1). Data check
The Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin Measure of Sampling Adequacy (KMO) and Bartlett's Test of
Sphericity (p-value) on the original experimental data were performed as data
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check procedure to test partial correlation and dependence. Since PCE is designed
for handling the collinear problem (Massy, 1965; Aguilera et al., 2006), the potential
of non-independence of the original data must be excluded. For any applicable data
for PCE, KMO should demonstrate a value>0.5, and Bartlett's test of sphericity
should be significant (p<0.05).
(2). Standardisation of original data
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transferred into a comparable range, such as zero and one, which provides a basis
whereby all data can be equally weighted (Manly, 1994). Standardisation can be
carried out using several different approaches (Montgomery, 2009). In this study,
since the target values of all tested properties are supposed to have the
(1)
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is the sequence after the data preprocessing which will form the standardised
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x%ij
matrix
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value of xj, x1j is the initial value of xj, and x0 is the desired value.
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(2)
in which
and
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range of rjk is [-1, 1].
4.2. Hierarchical Clustering Analysis
As one of the most frequently used clustering analysis (CA) methods, there are two
general strategies for HCA (Manly, 1994):
Agglomerative: a "bottom up" approach, in which each observation starts in its own
cluster and pairs of clusters are merged as one moves up the hierarchy.
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Divisive: a "top down" approach, in which all observations start in one cluster and
splits are performed recursively as one moves down the hierarchy.
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patterns and the similarity level at which groupings change (Manly, 1994).
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(3)
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In the proposed formula design method, HCA is used for analysing the
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which is the set of experimental results, Xn*m denotes the matrix of independent
variables which is the set of formula compositions (as the compositions shown in
Table 4).The typical linear regression model is shown as follow (Joliffe, 2002),
Y=c+
(4)
in which, c denotes the proportional ratio of the composition (wt.%), denotes the
unknown parametric vector of regression coefficients, and denotes the vector of
random errors (also known as the constant). The primary goal of PCE is to obtain an
for the parameter .
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The major PCE procedure for obtaining desirable formulae after data preprocessing
is shown as follow (Joliffe, 2002):
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is eigenvalue which
(5)
, j=1, 2, ..., m;
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(6)
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Wk=XVk=[XV1, , XVk] denotes m*k matrix having the first k PCs as its columns.
The number k is selected due the related ak is close to 1, as the kth PCs have already
explained the most of variation, thus kth eigenvectors are used as corresponding
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PCs.
=(WTW)-1WTY
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(7)
is modified to
increase its computation stability (especially for dealing with the fluctuations caused
by those smaller values close to 0) according to Yangs article (Yang, 1989),
=(WTAW)-1WTY
(8)
in which,
within the range of (k, 1).
Due to the nature of a mixture, the sum of percentage of each composition must
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equals to 100 and composition percentage cannot be negative, as previously shown
in Table 3. In this study, the least combined material cost was used as the main
objective - the minimum material cost objective was applied. Based on regressed
linear expression obtained by the PCE procedure and objectives, linear
programming would be performed to obtain the suitable formula to fulfill the
requirements of each industrial application listed in Table 1 and Table 3.
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The experimental results obtained are shown in Table 5, and some generic patterns
are found by observing the data. Addition of talc increased tensile and flexural
properties, but also reduced impact properties, as the experimental results shown in
Table 5.
The experimental results
Trial No.
TS
SC
FS
IS
MFI
TDL
22.8
1512
32.8
48.5
6.8
80.7
28.5
1555
39.9
133
2.4
86.1
23.9
1623
35.3
46.1
6.9
86.8
29.1
1704
40.8
78.3
2.8
88.5
26.7
1515
35.5
45.7
7.1
89.2
20.3
2643
36.7
24.2
9.2
86.3
24.7
1639
34.7
40.2
7.6
87.2
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FM
25.8
2963
37.2
18.9
9.7
96.9
27.6
2473
36.4
46.8
8.6
94.5
10
19.4
3064
36.1
23.4
8.8
92.2
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Fig.6.
Plot of FS (MPa) against percentage of talc in composites
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Fig.7.
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polymer matrix and the talc fillers (Dez-Gutirrez et al., 1999). The other likely
cause of this pattern could be the increase of the crystallinity of the composites, as
it was increased with the addition of talc (Wang et al., 2013). It has already been
shown that in PP/talc composites, both the nucleation and the growth PP crystal are
enhanced by the addition of talc (Naiki et al., 2001). It is also reported that in
particular, PP could be trans-crystallized on the talc cleavage surface with PP
crystals oriented perpendicular to the talc surface (Naiki et al., 2001), and this
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structure would reduce impact energy absorption which lead to inferior impact
properties. Similar pattern is also observed in the experimental results of
RPP/OMMT composites (Trial. No 1, 3, 5 in Table 4), as shown in Fig.8 and Fig.9.
However, there were some observable differences mechanical performance after
talc and OMMT additions. 5 wt.% of OMMT improved flexural strength by more than
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30 %, while 40% of talc only improved flexural strength by only less than 10 %.
Impact strength was initially increased with the addition of talc, then decreased with
the further talc addition, while impact strength was decreased immediately after
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introduction of OMMT.
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Fig.8.
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Fig.9.
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Fig.10.
Plot of MFI (10 g/10min under 230oC 2.16kg) against percentage of talc in
composites
However, the detailed effect of each composition and the co-effects between them
cannot be readily found due to intertwining formulation, for there are up to five
components will affect the properties of end product. Based upon calculations on the
original experimental data matrix, the KMO result is 0.53>0.5 and Bartletts
p=0<0.05, which meant this data set had some internal dependences and overlaps
(Joliffe, 2002). Thus, the proposed PCE based formula designing procedure was
validly applied.
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5.2. Requirements Reduction
Based on experimental data in Table 5, standardization is performed to transfer raw
data into comparable data array (the standard data matrix) using Eq.(1), as shown
in Table 6. And the correlation coefficient matrix was calculated via Eq.(2), as shown
in Table 7. Then, HCA was applied in accordance with Section 4.2. The HCA results
Table 6.
The standardised experimental results
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Trial No.
TS
FM
FS
IS
MFI
0.35
0.26
0.60
0.94
0.03
0.88
0.46
0.07
0.31
0.24
0.62
0.12
0.52
0.05
0.48
0.75
0.01
0.34
0.23
0.64
0.52
0.09
0.73
0.49
0.05
0.93
0.35
0.55
0.08
0.24
0.19
0.71
0.40
0.66
0.93
0.55
0.85
0.62
0.45
0.24
0.85
0.85
10
0.41
0.04
0.88
0.71
0.33
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0.38
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Table 7.
TDL
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0.56
0.07
0.65
-0.59
0.59
-0.62
0.68
-0.61
-0.92
0.18
0.70
0.28
-0.35
0.44
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-0.47
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Fig.11.
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In Fig.11, the numbers in vertical axis represented the distances between two
tested properties, for a smaller figure indicates a closer relationship between the
two corresponding properties. Element 1 to 6 in horizontal axis are representing the
six tested properties:
No.1 represented TS;
No.3 represented FS
No.4 represented IS;
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Fig.11 shows the six tested properties can be classified into two general categories:
(1). Flexural Modulus, Melt Flow Index and Temperature of Deflection under Load
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In which, FM and MFI are more closely related. The distances between any two
members of all these three properties are less than 0.4, thus they all can be
considered as a class according to Manly (1994) and Zafiriou et al (2012), and
flexural modulus was selected as the representative.
(2). Tensile Strength, Flexural Strength and Impact Strength
In which, TS and IS are more closely related, for their distance between TS and IS
is less than 0.4. Thus, they can be considered as a class according to Section 4.2,
and IS was selected as the representative.
According to Fig.11 and analysis above, properties whose distance less than 0.4 are
considered as one class, and the technical requirements in Table 1 were reduced: in
1st category, FM was selected; in 2nd category, FS and IS were selected. In total,
three properties were selected as the representatives, and the computation
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workload was greatly reduced. The reduced technical requirements based on Table
1 are shown in Table 8. Due to the nature of mixture, the constraints shown in Table
3 were kept as they were.
Table 8.
Applications
FM
FS
IS
Meter Holder
2400
35
40
Engine Cover
2200
35
40
Fender
2000
30
60
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automobile parts are greatly reduced, and the PCE procedure which described in
Section 4.3 was applied.
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4 PCs were selected in this study, since a4 obtained by Eq.(5) and Eq.(16) was 0.98
which is close to 1. It meant that the first four PCs have already explained most of
the variation. Then, the linear regression model of the three selected tested
properties (shown in Table 8) was obtained by Eq.(8) is shown in Table 9. The
calculation of coefficients in the model was based on the data preprocessed
matrixes of combination of both the initial compositions (Table 4) and the
Table 9.
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VPP(c1)
RPP(c2)
Talc(c3)
OMMT(c4)
MAPP(c5)
FM
1736
-3.73
-4.68
46.07
98.56
-14.35
37.53
0.03
-0.03
0.03
0.22
-0.08
71.70
0.44
-0.21
-1.02
-2.70
0.12
FS
IS
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Tested Properties
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Tested Properties
Constant
VPP(c1)
RPP(c2)
Talc(c3)
OMMT(c4)
MAPP(c5)
FM
1279
0.65
0.03
50.35
102.07
-9.67
FS
34.89
0.05
-0.01
0.05
0.24
-0.10
IS
51.57
0.64
-0.06
-0.82
-2.54
0.32
FM
1041
-4.03
6.08
32.05
51.17
28.74
FS
36.22
0.01
-0.03
0.11
IS
76.69
0.26
-0.17
-1.234
-0.29
-0.73
LSR
PLSR
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Methods
To evaluate the correlation accuracy of these three models (Table 9 and Table 10),
Eq.(9) was used.
Pr d Exp
100%
Exp
(9)
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Dif =
in which, Exp denotes the experimental result of a property and Prd denotes the
predicted value of the property by using Eq.(4) based on the linear regression
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models (Table 9 and Table 10) and the initial compositions (Table 4), Dif denotes the
difference between the experimental result (Exp) and the predicted value (Prd) is
expressed in proportional percentage. The smaller the Dif value, the more accurate
the model is. The obtained values of Difs of the three linear regression models are
shown in Table 11.
Table 11. The Difs of the reduced requirements using the three linear regression
models obtained by PCE, LSR and PLSR respectively
FM
FS
IS
FM
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Trial No.
PCE
9.31
4.65
3
4
IS
FM
LSR
FS
IS
PLSR
6.04
0.60
8.66
7.10
1.09
12.04
10.76
22.82
0.33
19.65
5.83
2.08
19.81
35.01
6.42
29.57
10.34
1.05
0.61
9.81
0.37
2.23
9.95
3.23
26.53
2.93
3.24
11.17
5.42
10.95
18.23
8.16
6.76
8.19
1.32
5.47
8.53
2.56
4.44
46.16
3.58
10.92
5.58
1.01
9.09
5.54
0.84
11.45
8.13
3.76
14.75
2.43
0.20
14.18
2.86
0.89
15.85
30.28
3.52
8.08
9.83
0.59
22.75
9.62
1.51
24.71
7.17
5.73
12.8
5
6
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EP
FS
2.55
0.36
19.76
2.71
1.54
19.29
1.21
0.05
16.6
10
6.05
3.82
60.68
6.41
0.66
60.56
9.44
0.33
27.74
Average
6.19
1.80
16.40
6.20
2.30
17.04
17.76
4.55
17.66
As shown in Table 11, the average Difs of the PCE linear regression model are
smaller than those of the other two models, which indicated the PCE linear
regression model has higher correlation accuracy. Compared to the existing formula
design methods (Soury et al., 2009; Homkhiew et al., 2014), this method is
particularly efficient for it obtains accurate linear regression model based on a
limited trial data instead of detailed experimental data on each composition.
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5.4. Optimal Formulation
As previously stated, the minimum material cost objective was applied in this study.
The prices of the materials used are shown in Table 12 which being expressed in
yuan per kilogram (average prices for small quantity purchase during the period of
Feb 2014 to Feb 2015, and they will be much cheaper in large order).
Table 12.
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The average prices of the materials used in this study during the period of Feb 2014
to Feb 2015 (information obtained in Feb 2015 from material suppliers, Yangzi
Petrochemical Co., Ltd., Yoshida Chemical co.ltd., Deba Chemical co.ltd., et al)
VPP(c1)
RPP(c2)
Talc(c3)
OMMT(c4)
MAPP(c5)
12
18
20
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It is known that the total composition percentage is equal to 100 and no negative
value should be found in composition as shown in Table 3. The PCE linear regression
model shown in Table 9 was coupled with the minimum material cost objective in
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RPP(c2)
Talc(c3)
OMMT(c4)
MAPP(c5)
Meter Holder
17
60
18
Engine Cover
17
60
20
Fender
38
39
20
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Application
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Homkhiew et al., 2014), the use of fillers was extensive since mechanical
performance was the sole target. This study aims at achieving the minimum cost
objective along with multiple performance requirements, the use of cheap
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components is maximised, such as RPP and talc, as shown in Table 13. The
percentages of RPP in the formulae for meter holder and engine cover have reached
the upper limit, and the percentages of talc in the formulae for engine cover and
fender have also reached the upper limit. Consequently, the use of expensive
materials is minimised, such as OMMT and MAPP, as shown in Table 13. The
percentages of MAPP in the formulae for all the three applications have only up to
the lower limit.
Further, a verification test set was performed to compare the performance of
obtained optimal formulae with predicted values, in order to verify the effectiveness
of the proposed formula designing method.
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5.5. Verification
With the purpose of investigating the effectiveness of the formula design method
proposed, a verification testing set was carried out. The compositions of materials
were according to formulae in Table 12, and those composites were extruded, dried,
injection moulded, conditioned and tested under constant processing parameters as
same as the previous tests. The results of the verification test are summarized in
Table 14, the Exp values compared to the Prd values obtained by using linear
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regression model in Table 9. In Table 14, the Difs are also calculated and presented
by using Eq.(9).
Table 14.
Cover
Fender
Exp
Prd
Dif
Required
Exp
Prd
Dif
Required
Exp
Prd
Dif
Required
2465
2375
3.65
2400
35.89
36.98
3.04
35
40.13
43.18
7.60
40
2214
2270
2.53
2200
36.12
36.60
1.3
35
44.82
46.54
3.84
40
2121
2290
47.97
2000
34.57
37.86
9.52
30
61.27
60.19
1.76
60
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Engine
IS
According to Table 14, all the Difs are within 10 % and satisfied the reduced
requirements in Table 8, which indicated that the feasibility of this proposed method
in designing composites based recycled plastic for potential automobile applications.
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Holder
FS
EP
Meter
FM
are fully satisfying the technical requirements in Table 1. Thus, it is proved that the
specific composition selection rules and the reduction of the requirements
performed by HCA are both effective and efficient, for they provide solid analysis
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Application
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The experimental results of the other three properties of the obtained optimal
formulae compared to the requirements in Table 1
Application
TS
MFI
TDL
Exp
Required
Exp
Required
Exp
Required
Meter Holder
24.5
20
8.1
88.5
85
Engine Cover
23.8
20
8.4
92.7
92
Fender
25.3
22
7.2
90.9
90
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6. Conclusions
Using recycled plastic in manufacturing not only brings economic advantages, but
also reduces environmental impact. However, there is a lack of methods to make
recycled plastic meet the multiple requirements of high-end industrial applications.
Most of current researches only focus on improving one or few properties of recycled
plastic, and also require detailed tests on each possible formulation. This paper
presents a novel method that combines HCA and PCE for designing recycled plastic
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In this proposed formula design method, HCA is used for reducing the number of the
technical requirements of automobile parts by analysing the inter-relationships of
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multiple properties, and PCE is used for obtaining linear regression model of
composition based on selected PCs. With the chosen objective (in this study,
minimum material cost of the composites is selected as primary objective) and the
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as the experimental results were closely matched the predictions. This method is
novel and original, which designs suitable formula for adapting recycled plastic into
high-value industrial applications without conducting detailed, repeated tests on
each possible formulation as other literatures did (Stark and Matuana, 2003; Soury
et al., 2009; Zolfaghari et al., 2013; Homkhiew et al., 2014). Thus, this
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(4). The optimal formulae acquired via the proposed method were validly proved in
verification testing set, as all properties met the technical requirements while
minimum material cost was achieved.
Further, this work can be extended in several ways to expand its application:
(1). More demanding industrial applications will be taken into consideration, which
will include requirements of manufacturing details and structural design;
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(2). Application of this method will be extended to the whole life-cycle of recycled
plastic, to model up the performance or behaviour of recycled plastic and related
composites in different stages of the life cycle of parts.
Acknowledgements
This work is financially supported by the Innovation Team of Ningbo Science and
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Explained Variation
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AEV
IS
CA
Exp
EV
FM
FS
HCA
KMO
MAPP
MFI
OMMT
Polychlorinated Biphenyls
PCB
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EP
POP
Polypropylene
PP
Points
pts
Predicted Value
Prd
Principal Component
PC
PCA
PCE
Recycled Polypropylene
RPP
Tensile Strength
TS
Talcum Powder
Talc
TDL
Virgin Polypropylene
VPP
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Highlights
(1). A new tool for formula design is proposed to adapt recycled plastic for
manufacturing;
(2). Multiple technical requirements and minimum material cost are achievable;
(3). Hierarchical cluster analysis is used to reduce technical requirements of auto
parts;
(4). Principal component estimate is used to identify effects of components in
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composites;
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method.