Modeling of the ecological separation process of printed circuit boards

Abstract

The content of this paper is the modeling of the stress in the printed circuit board due to the cyclic thermal stress for its ecological recycling. Cyclic thermal stresses result in separation of copper conduction paths and plastic plates due to different longitudinal expansion. For separation, it was important to determine the minimum temperature of the cyclical changes to separate the conductive copper paths and the plastic. We use mathematical modeling tools to describe the course of temperature fields in the PCB during heating and reheating. We conducted some simulation experiments in the Pro/ENGINEER programming environment to know the waveforms and stresses of the PCBs during the cyclic loading cycle. From experiments conducted in the laboratory, we have verified that the process of temperature separation is feasible for designing an eco-friendly way of recycling PCBs. © 2018 The Authors, published by EDP Sciences.