Studying the Influence of the Mixing Speed of the Polymer Blend of General-Purpose Polystyrene and Acrylonitrile-Butadiene Styrene with the Applications of Artificial Neural Networks

Abstract

General Purpose Polystyrene (GPPS) has weak properties and this weakness made the applications of this polymer be limited. Therefore, the use of the mixtures of polymers can improve these properties. Different parameters like the mixing speed can affect the quality of the properties of preparing polymer from the mixture of several polymers. In this research, the polymer blend of GPPS and Acrylonitrile-Butadiene Styrene (ABS) has been investigated. In order to prepare this polymer mixture, GPPS has been considered as the main phase (base polymer) and ABS has been considered as the scattered phase (additive). Firstly, the blended polymers with different weight percentages (0, 0.04, 0.08 and 0.12) of ABS/GPPS in different mixing speeds (30, 40, 50 and 60 rpm) have been prepared and for each mixture, the Melt Flow Index (C), Vicat Softening Temperature, Tensile at Break and impact test have been measured. The laboratory data collected from different tests, has been simulated by the Multi-Layer Perceptron (MLP) method of Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) and the results of the simulated data covered the laboratory data perfectly. The results declare that the presence of ABS in the mixed polymer improved the Tensile strength and thermal properties. In order to reach the highest quality in carried out tests, it is considered to use ABS in a high percentage (0.12) and the maximum possible mixing speed (60 rpm).