Engineering Commons^™

Mechanical Behavior Of Compression Molded Polyethylene Terephthalate, Daniel Cole Greinke, Paul Jackson Mcewan, Dan Tran

Materials Engineering

The purpose of this project was to investigate the effects of time, temperature, and pressure on the tensile strength and elastic modulus of recycled PET. Compression molding trials were performed on shredded PET bottles to produce tensile test specimens conforming to ASTM D638-03. Aluminum molds containing the PET were mechanically fastened together at the desired pressure and heated in an electric oven. The resulting specimens were subjected to tensile testing for analysis. This screening experiment failed to generate any statistically significant data concerning the factors of interest. These preliminary results may be used to design a more systematic follow-up study.