Numerical and Experimental Study of the Behavior of PVC Material Subjected to Aging

PVC is increasingly used in different fields. This means increased use that automatically implies - after the lifetime - an increase in waste, which requires an increase in the recycling rate. This paper proposes an approach to analyse samples of recycled PVC material (rigid and flexible), subject to two types of accelerated aging. Rigid PVC samples are exposed to a continuous temperature of 55°C and UV (ultraviolet) for 15 days, and the flexible PVC samples are exposed to the same temperature with UV exposure generated by a lamp in two ways, samples are exposed to a continuous temperature for 7 days, others are exposed to an intermittent temperature for the same duration, 104 minutes simulating the day, then cooling to room temperature for 104 minutes to simulate the night, the system is controlled by an Arduino Uno board to generate the delay. Numerical modeling is carried out using the finite element method and was able to confirm the results obtained experimentally.