Melt processing for enhancing compatibility of aluminum-reinforced acrylonitrile–butadiene–styrene and polyamide 6 for friction welding applications

Abstract

Friction welding is one of the established solid-state welding techniques with wide aerospace, automobile and industrial applications. For thermoplastic components, it is extremely difficult to join the dissimilar material [e.g., acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) to polyamide (PA) 6] with friction welding process. For such joining/welding applications, there is a need of strong material compatibility/processing technique. This study highlights melt flow index (MFI) as one of the rheological/flow properties which can be used as controlling parameter for dissimilar thermoplastic friction welding. The twin screw extrusion and fused deposition modeling as melt processing techniques have been used for processing/fabrication of functional/non-functional surfaces/prototypes. The results of study suggest that ABS with 15% Al metal powder by weight (ABS-15Al) and PA6 with 50% Al metal powder by weight (PA6-50Al) have a similar range of MFI as 11.57 and 11.97 g/10 min, respectively (which confirmed the compatibility for joining of both polymers by friction welding). The results are supported by photo-micrographs and mechanical testing.