Rapid microwave welding of two polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA) substrates

The use of conductive polymers in welding of plastics offers the possibility of understanding and developing new welding techniques. Polyaniline, which absorbs the microwave energy and converts it to heat to perform the welding process, can be deposited and patterned locally. In this paper conductive polyaniline in a liquid form and single mode microwave technology was used to weld two polymethmethyacrylate (PMMA) substrates. These rapidly welded samples were then shear tested to determine the joint strength as a function of processing parameters such as heating time, microwave power, applied pressure, and quantity of polyaniline. During welding both the processing and operating parameters were varied in order to determine their effect on the resulting bond strength. It was found that increasing the microwave power, heating time and amount of polyaniline increased the joint strength. A heating time of 15 s and increasing power from 100 to 300 Watts increased joint strength from 1.7 to 6.8 MPa. The joint strength testing technique of a single lap shear was chosen and samples were prepared according to ASTM D 3164-97. The dielectric properties of polyaniline and PMMA over a range of 18°C to 110°C at the frequency of 2.45 GHz are reported