Impact behavior of recycled core composite polymeric enclosures

The growing awareness about the impact of non-biodegradable polymeric waste on the environment and the associated cost benefits have led to extensive use of recycled materials. The properties of polymers degrade once they are recycled. This paper presents a comparison of the impact behavior of virgin and recycled polymers as a function of thickness. The thickness is an important parameter in design of polymeric enclosures and as such, the impact energy as a function of thickness needs to be optimized. The ‘DSGZ’ phenomenological constitutive model, developed at Tufts University, uniformly describes the entire range of stress–strain constitutive relationship of polymers under any monotonic loading mode, and is used to predict the plastic failure energies. This paper compares the impact behavior and impact energies of a monolithic virgin PBT (polybutylene-terephthalates) to that of recycled ABS (acrylonitrile–butadiene–styrene)/ASA (acrylic–styrene–acrylonitrile) composite enclosures. The composite enclosures consist of skin layers of ASA at the top and bottom with a center core of recycled ABS. ABAQUS/Explicit and finite element analysis are used to model the enclosures, calculate the plastic failure energies and develop a better understanding of the impact behavior of polymers for enclosure applications.