Granulation and recycling of polymers

The use of polymers and composite materials based on polymer matrix systems increases. With this raise the demands on recycling of both post-consumer and in house based material increase. The demands on the recycling process also increase. The reason is that the process more often has to be a part of the conventional production line. In order to incorporate such a process in a production line technical, economical and as important environmental demand has to be obtained. In many recycling processes the most important part is the granulation of the material. The granulation process is important in many ways i.e.: Mechanical properties of the produced material, final material price, working environment, productivity, Quality and disturbance. The granulation process has not developed with the same rate as other industrial applications. With the increased recycling demand there is a large interest of developing an efficient granulation process that includes properties as: Productivity, Quality and Disturbance. The main goal with the presented work is to develop a system in which the granulation process is explained in the same manner as a conventional turning process. This is done with a system in which a work material is given a cutting resistance and from the cutting resistance the machinability is calculated. For the granulation process a similar evaluation system is developed.