MAE Final Year Project
Milestones
Risk Assessments and Training
Thursday 31st October 2019
Before any experimental work could be accomplished the team had to complete a detailed risk assessment and undergo rigorous training to safely operate the rig and the other heavy equipment required for the manufacturing of a panel. The training and risk assessment was completed later than had previously been scheduled due to conflicting time schedules and logistical difficulties.
First Run
Friday 1st November 2019
The team were eager to begin the experimental work as quickly as possible to achieve as much as possible before the end of the first semester. However, after a few hours of rig operation fibres stopped collecting and an unpleasant smell was noticed in in the operating room. The team immediately halted the operations and decided to leave the rig to cool down before investigating what had happened. On Monday the 3rd of November the team disassembled and cleaned the rig and discovered considerable blockage at the top of the reactor.
Finding Software
Tuesday 5th November 2019
Following research of possible LCA software to carry out the analysis, OpenLCA was chosen due to characteristics such as:
· Opensource
· User Interface
· Postprocessing tools
· Forum access
· Documentation
To this point, research papers have been consulted to build a picture of the best way to approach the LCA, this will continue alongside study of the standards ISO 14040 and ISO 14044.
Thermal Cleaning Collected Fibres
Tuesday 11th November 2019
Fibres that were collected from the rig had to undergo thermal cleaning to assure that the previous chemical sizing was removed from the fibre. Due to issues with the rig the collected fibres were considerably more charred than expected thus the thermal cleaning was used to remove the unburnt plastic as well. After the thermal cleaning the recycled fibres were combined with polypropylene to form a mat, four mats were required to create a panel.
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The First Panel
Monday 17th November 2019
The manufacture of the first panel took considerably more time than had previously been expected due to the complications that arose with collecting glass fibres from the rig. The first panel only underwent thermal cleaning as this would be used as a baseline to measure any improvements in the mechanical strength of the fibres with any extra treatments.
ITA, Aachen Samples
Monday 2nd December 2019
Dr Yang had received the samples from Aachen and after some analysis the group determined that the process looked very promising. However to achieve better results further analysis had to be conducted and so it was vital to send more recycled glass fibres and possibly even conduct a visit to learn more about the process and further investigate the possibilities of using this process to create GFRP using recycled glass fibres.
Finalising LCA Plan
Wednesday 4th December
A plan of attack for LCA has been constructed which includes collaboration with the ACG in the University of Strathclyde. The collaboration will surround upscaling the rig to achieve accurate energy usage which can be used as an input for OpenLCA. An effective plan for LCA has been created which will be communicated to the group’s stakeholder in the coming weeks and make any changes prior to work commencing in semester 2.
Commercial Scale Rig Schematic
Additional Panels
Monday 6th January 2020
The second semester started of very successfully, after some alterations to the rig a considerable amount of fibres was collected. During the week the rig was ran twice and enough fibres were collected to craft an additional three panels. The three new panels were all created with different treatments to investigate their effect on the fibre strength regeneration. A couple of weeks later, the panels were laser cut into tensile bars with the purpose of undergoing tensile testing to determine the optimal strength regeneration process for the recycled fibres.
Data Completion Breakthrough
Thursday 30th January
Data research for both shredding and transportation of the composite have been completed with effective progress of the rig with collaboration with the ACG. This sets the group up well for data research of the manufacturing processes including compression moulding, injection moulding and bulk moulding compounding.
Mechanical Testing
Friday 14th February
The final step after crafting a panel was to perform a tensile test on the five bars produced from each panel. The tensile test was performed in the laboratory at Strathclyde University where the equipment produced a stress-strain graph until fracture. This meant the fracture strength, ultimate tensile strength, Young's modulus and other useful properties could be determined.
LCA Results
Friday 20th March
The team have completed all data entry to the software and obtained results for both energy usage and carbon emissions. The analysis is currently being undertaken with reference to ISO standards as well as technical research papers, this allows comparisons and effective conclusions to be drawn. The analysis will be completed next week to allow the group to put these into the report and effectively conclude the LCA study.
My Project
Group N are proud of their academic achievements and would like to share this with you, use the button below to view their final report.