STUDIES OF MECHANICAL PROPERTIES OF BOTTOM ASH FILLED PBT COMPOSITES

Particulate filled polymer composites have been very useful due to their low cost and wide engineering applications. Fly Ash as well as Bottom Ash emerging from thermal power plants have been an inevitable environmental hazard. Polybutylene Terephthalate (PBT) polymer has outstanding mechanical, electrical, chemical properties, better dimensional stability and low moisture absorption properties. Therefore, it has been very widely used for automobile and industrial applications. PBT composite of Bottom Ash, with and without a coupling agent has been made in this work. It is found that flexural modulus and flexural strength of this composite have increased for 90 microns Bottom Ash with the 15% (by wt%) loading and also a cost saving of 15% is reported. However tensile strength and impact strength are found to be decreasing marginally with the increase in % loading of Bottom Ash in the polymer. Scanning electron microscope (SEM) was used to characterize the samples for microstructure.