Single-screw Extrusion

Screw extrusion is one established processes for plastic/polymer recycling and processing. Commercially, both single-screw and twin-screw extruders are available for polymer processing. The use of single-screw extruders in production processes has progressed significantly over the past decades. In this work, two case studies are reported regarding processing polymer material (Nylon-6), as base matrix, and metallic powder (SiC/Al2O3), as reinforcements, through single-screw extrusion. For processing material using a single-screw extruder, a filament in the shape of a cylindrical wire is prepared. Some mechanical properties of wire (such as tensile strength, yield strength, percentage elongation, etc.) have been calculated by using a universal tensile testing machine (UTM). The wire was made to run with a commercial fused deposition modeling setup (Stratasys u-print, United States), and samples in the form of cylindrical pins were prepared. These cylindrical pins were tested on a pin-on-disk setup for analysis of wear behavior. Data from the tensile testing and wear testing have been processed using a statistical software package (Design Expert). Finally, this study compiled the results of wear and other mechanical properties in the form of mathematical models obtained from a statistical software package for a better understanding of the process and to develop products with tailor-made properties