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Using acoustic emissions to monitor recycled polymer filament production for deep space exploration (Conference Presentation)
Summary
Researchers used acoustic emission sensors to monitor filament extrusion from ISS plastic waste blends, finding that frequency-centroid inconsistencies reliably signal clogging and defects, and that finer-particle metalized food packaging caused fewer blockages than coarser material.
With a lot of plastic waste on board the International Space Station, an acoustic emission sensor was used to monitor the filament production of these plastic wastes. The waste materials used was HDPE mixed with metalized food packaging with and without carbon fiber and LDPE mixed with metalized food packaging to simulate a mixture of common polymers found on the ISS. During the filament production, the acoustic emission data showed clogging and extrusion defects through inconsistencies in the frequency centroid. Though these test, the smaller particles sizes of the metalized food packaging showed less clogging through diameter consistency and the acoustic emission data.