Tübüler kompozitler için polimer reçine sistemlerinin optimizasyonu

Polymer matrix composite materials are designed and produced according to various needs. Main strategy is to obtain the most appropriate product at the most appropriate costs. Hence various alternative composites are developed according to cost performance ratios. Automotive industry is undoubtedly one of the most challenging sectors. Besides, biomedical sector, superstructure and infrastructure sectors, marine, aviation and space sectors are also concentrated on different performance characteristics of composite materials such as strength and lightness, as well as compatibility, flame retardancy or resistance to chemicals. Though, raw materials such as resin, reinforcers are procured according to the needs in composite production, various strategies are proposed to lower the material costs. One of the basic strategies to lower the costs is to mix the cheaper components to the resins up to a point mechanical performance did not change abruptly. That can be industrial waste, either from the composite industry or else. In the first part of this thesis, the performance of vinyl ester resins was evaluated after mixing with polyester wastes within the facilities. Without sacrificing mechanical values, it was possible to reduce the cost and evaluate the material within the new product. Accordingly, the addition of 10% polyester resin decreased the cost of the product by 6.66%, while the storage module showed higher performance than the reference material without unsaturated polyester resin. The performances of the resin mixtures were measured by dynamic mechanical analysis. After the results, pipe production was performed by helical winding method with a mixture containing 10% polyester resin. It was confirmed that there was no decrease in the mechanical values by both longitudinal tensile tests and circumferential tensile tests (split disk tests). Cost study was calculated by taking into consideration the unit prices of the product. For more realistic results, items such as storage, processing and transport for disposal should be added if they are not used during the 3-month shelf life of the material left. However, these values will vary according to the location of the facilities which we are not included in the calculation. As a second study of the thesis, waste polystyrene (PS) foam, a widely used thermoplastic polymer, was mixed into thermoset resin to evaluate the waste material and reduce the cost of product. Two different approaches were investigated to prepare the mixtures. At first, small pieces of PS foams were directly mixed into vinyl ester resin (VER). In the second, the PS foam was dissolved in the styrene monomer which isused as the diluent for VE resins and then mixed into the resin. It was observed that materials prepared by using both approaches, mechanical values of the test results decreased as well as the glass transition temperature of the material while the amount of PS increased. This result shows that the structure of the polystyrene foam is deteriorated and the vinyl ester bond reduces the cross-link density. The dissolution of the polystyrene foam directly in the vinyl ester resin yielded more favorable results than dissolution in the styrene monomer. Nevertheless, the high viscosity structure formed in the mixtures obtained is an important consideration in the process selection of the product to be produced.