Mechanical Properties and Sound Insulation Effect of ABS/Carbon-black Composites

This article describes an evaluation of the mechanical properties and sound insulation effects of composites made of acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) and carbon-black using the design of experiment (DOE) approach. The solution blending process and method are presented. The effect of the acetone content in ABS during the drying process was studied by conducting tensile tests of injection-molded specimens. ABS was dissolved in acetone, and carbon-black was dispersed in the ABS/acetone mixture with varying conditions according to the orthogonal array table used to reduce similar experiments. The tensile specimens were produced by injection molding in each of the DOE cases, and the elastic modulus and maximum tensile strength of ABS/carbon-black composites were evaluated with a tensile test to determine the main effects of those factors. A sound insulation test was conducted with a modified impedance tube by using the DOE orthogonal array table, and a correlation between carbon-black and the sound insulation was revealed by a main effect analysis. An additional sound insulation test was conducted to verify the sound insulation effect of ABS/carbon-black composites as a function of the carbon-black percentage. The results indicate that the increase of carbon-black affected the mechanical properties as well as the sound insulation effects of ABS/carbon-black composite.