Automotive and industrial machinery contains parts known as “super engineering plastics.” These plastics are much stronger than normal plastics. However, the problem with these super engineering plastics is that they also decompose into sulfuric gas which induces a highly corrosive environment. This environment makes it difficult for the screws in super engineering plastic manufacturing machines and they don’t hold up very long.
A recent discovery could change all that. A team of researchers in Japan has come up with a new method to improve the corrosion resistance and wear created by the machines that create super engineering plastics. Associate Professor and author of the research Kenta Yamanaka, from the Institute for Materials Research at Tohoku University, discusses super engineering plastics:
The global market for super engineering plastics has grown in recent years because they have remarkably high-temperature resistance, good mechanical strength and exceptional chemical and solvent resistance in high-temperature environments. However, during the manufacturing process, the reciprocating screw in the manufacturing apparatus usually suffers from frequent wear loss because the semi-fluid raw materials commonly contain a large number of glass fibers as reinforcement.
Yamanaka and his team studied a special steel alloy known as high-speed steel that is currently mainly used for tools. He says the steel has outstanding mechanical properties at both room and high temperatures but has corrosive properties. What they’ve done is use an alloy based high-speed steel and treated it with copper.
Yamanaka on his findings:
The wear and corrosion resistance of steels generally show a trade-off relationship. In this study, we demonstrate that adding trace copper to high-hardness steels significantly improves the corrosion resistance of the alloys, resulting in an excellent combination of wear and corrosion resistance.
The research team has successfully developed a steel that is highly worn and corrosion-resistant. They are experimenting with new ways they can use this in other fields. Given the number of vehicles on the roads and the amount of super engineering plastic that is currently used, this is an important breakthrough. Hopefully, this will add to the longevity of the materials being used.
