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Several million pounds of S/MA glass reinforced resin has been successfully recovered from manufacturing offal and reject foamed / covered Instrument Panels (IP's) over the past ten years. ACI-WIPAG and Visteon recovered high quality S/MA resin, prepared blends with virgin resin and injection-molded IP substrates meeting OEM specifications. This “S/MA Resin Reclaim” process has been an economical and environmental success; minimized landfill volume, reduced landfill disposal costs, recovered a valuable resource, increased material utilization and reduced raw material costs. This paper reports on a new system and process to recover S/MA glass reinforced resin from manufacturing trim offal and reject IP's, blending and supplying OEM specification resin blends for molding instrument panel substrates. The system demonstrated economical recovery of an excellent quality “Reclaim” resin, blend consistency and uniformity for injection molding instrument panel substrates.

A process was developed and commercialized by Ford Motor Company, ACD for the recovery of S/MA-GR (glass fiber reinforced styrene maleic anhydride copolymer) resin from trim offal and rejected composite foam instrument panels, SAE# 93005. This high quality, low contaminate level “Reclaim”, S/MA-GR resin, has very good physical property retention through the manufacturing cycle. It compares favorably to post consumer “recycle” S/MA-GR resin recovered from Arizona. Acrylic (PMMA) resin recovered from manufacturing tail lamp lenses, etc. and post consumer applications was compounded with S/MA and fiberglass. This S/MA-GR compound has improved acrylic dispersion, uniform fiberglass content and improved mechanical properties: Dylark ® 378 P20A. The adverse effects of acrylic regrind on S/MA Boss/Joint Performance as described in SAE# 95810 should be minimized by reducing the variability incurred by blending regrind acrylic at the molding machine.

A process evaluation was made as part of a continuing program to identify and control the root causes leading to low stripping torque in automotive structural attachment bosses. The first phase of this program was presented jointly by Inland Division. General Motors Corporation and ARCO Chemical at the 1987 SAE meeting. Subsequent evaluations have broadened the scope of materials evaluated and the laboratory evaluations have lead to the study of the commercial molding process. A methodical approach was taken and statistical process control techniques were applied in addressing the possible causes contributing to low stripping torque. The evaluation program identified the bosses most likely to have stripping problems, tested for correlations with measured molding parameters and effectively identified the future direction of the program.