Dissertations and Theses @ UNI
Availability
Open Access Thesis
Keywords
Tires -- Recycling; Microwave heating;
Abstract
This research was performed to soften scrap tires to aid in their transformation from whole tires to valuable streams of rubber and steel for reuse in industry. Actual shredded scrap rubber was used in this experiment to determine if this highly variable material could yield consistent results if subjected to volumetric heating from a magnetron emitting microwave energy.
A consumer microwave oven was used to heat this material. This oven had its control circuitry modified by using a programmable logic controller to operate the energy exposure time. The sample's surface temperature was measured utilizing a non contact infrared thermometer. All of these samples recorded hardness using a Shore A durometer and were recorded according to ASTM 02240-03 standard test for rubber property-durometer hardness. Five levels of temperature were used to record the Shore A hardness at each level. Twenty six samples completed this battery of tests to reveal how their hardness values changed with temperature.
This research has shown that samples weighing greater than 20 grams can decrease their Shore A hardness by ten percent if volumetrically heated to 100 °C. This reduction in hardness should be reflected in efficiency gains in the mechanical separation machinery used to reduce whole tires to valuable steel and rubber reusable material.
Year of Submission
2006
Degree Name
Master of Arts
Department
Department of Industrial Technology
First Advisor
Recayi Pecen
Date Original
2006
Object Description
1 PDF file (98 pages)
Copyright
©Russell Jon Lucas
Language
en
File Format
application/pdf
Recommended Citation
Lucas, Russell Jon, "An investigation into microwave energy to soften scrap tire rubber aiding existing mechanical separation processes" (2006). Dissertations and Theses @ UNI. 1304.
https://scholarworks.uni.edu/etd/1304
Comments
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