Mechanical Analysis of Laminated Structures Consisting of Denim Fabric and Recycled HDPE / LDPE Bottle Caps

Industrialization and the increase in population in the world have led to a great increase in the amount of solid waste. Plastic and textile wastes have an important share among the solid wastes, which include many different waste groups. While the increase in disposable products increases the amount of plastic waste, the understanding of fast fashion is among the most important reasons for the increase in textile waste. In this study, cotton based woven textile wastes (2^nd quality denim fabric) are laminated with plastic packaging wastes (high density polyethylene (HDPE) and low density polyethylene (LDPE) water bottle caps) in various sequences and thickness, areal density and fiber weight ratio values of these structures are examined. In addition, the impact properties of the produced laminated composite structures are analyzed via drop-weight impact testing machine. The results show that the increase in the number of fabric layers contributes positively to the energy absorption rate thus the samples including two layers of fabrics and one layer of either LDPE or HDPE plastic sheet have the highest maximum loads and absorbed energy values. In addition, it is also seen that HDPE lamination results in higher absorbed energy values compared to LDPE lamination.