Stress birefringence patterns in molten polymers during the mold-filling and cooling process

An experimental study has been carried out to better understand the phenomenon of stress buildup during the mold-filling process in the injection molding operation. For the study, a rectangular mold with two glass windows was constructed, so that stress birefringence patterns of molten polymers flowing into the mold could be photographed with the aid of a polariscope. As a feeding system, a 1-in. extruder was used attached to the mold with a 2-ft length of stainless steel tubing having a relief valve. In this way, the injection pressure (and injection velocity) was carefully controlled to ensure that the glass windows would not be damaged. The development of stress birefringence patterns during the mold-filling process was recorded on a movie film. It was observed that, in isothermal operation, when flow stopped after the mold was filled, stresses relaxed immediately because of the very slow cooling of the mold by ambient air. However, it was observed that, as cooling proceeded, stresses were gradually built up again in the mold. It was possible, therefore, to determine the residual stress in the mold, which originates from the cooling process alone.     

Development of stress birefringence and flow patterns during mold fillin and cooling

An experimental study was carried out to investigate the development of stress birefringence patterns of molten polymer during the mold filling and cooling operation. For this study, a rectangular mold cavity with glass windows on both sides was constructed, which permitted us to record on a movie film the changes in stress birefringence patterns in the mold cavity during the molding operation, using a circular polariscope. The mold was equipped with an automatic relay system which closes the shut-off valve when the pressure in the mold cavity reaches a predetermined value. The mold was also equipped with both heating and cooling devices, so that either isothermal or non-isothermal injection molding could be carried out. The mold temperature was controlled by thermistor regulated controllers. During the entire cycle of the molding operation, the mold cavity pressure was continuously recorded on a chart recorder, using a melt pressure transducer. The present study shows how molding conditions (namely, injection pressure, melt temperature, mold temperature) influence the distribution of stress birefringence patterns in a molten polymer while it is being injected into, and cooled in, a rectangular mold cavity.     

Numerical prediction of residual stresses and birefringence in injection/compression molded center‐gated disk. Part II: Effects of processing conditions

The accompanying paper, Part I, has presented the physical modeling and basic numerical analysis results of the entire injection molding process, in particular with regard to both flow‐induced and thermally‐induced residual stress and birefringence in an injection molded center‐gated disk. The present paper, Part II, investigates the effects of various processing conditions of injection/compression molding process on the residual stress and birefringence. The birefringence is significantly affected by injection melt temperature, packing pressure and packing time. However, the thermally‐induced birefringence in the core region is insignificantly affected by most of the processing conditions. On the other hand, packing pressure, packing time and mold wall temperature affect the thermally‐induced residual stress rather significantly in the shell layer, but insignificantly in the core region. The residual stress in the shell layer is usually compressive, but could be tensile if the packing time is long, packing pressure is large, and the mold temperature is low. The lateral constraint type turns out to play an important role in determining the residual stress in the shell layer. Injection/compression molding has been found to reduce flow‐induced birefringence in comparison with the conventional injection molding process. In particular, mold closing velocity and initial opening thickness for the compression stage of injection/compression molding have significant effects on the flow‐induced birefringence, but not on the thermal residual stress and the thermally‐induced birefringence.     

Numerical modeling of injection/compression molding for center-gated disk: Part II. Effect of compression stage

In the accompanying paper, Part I, we have presented a physical modeling and the associated numerical analysis of the injection molding process with a compressible viscoelastic fluid model. In Part II, effects of the compression stage in the injection/compression molding process are presented. Numerical results showed that the injection/compression molding process reduced birefringence as compared with the injection molding process. In this respect, the injection/compression molding process seems to be more suitable for manufacturing precise optical products of good optical quality than the injection molding process. Effects of the packing stage on the birefringence distribution in the injection/compression molding process were found to be similar to those in the injection molding process. Our numerical results show that the birefringence becomes smaller as the melt temperature gets higher and the closing velocity of the mold gets smaller with the flow rate and the mold temperature affecting the birefringence insignificantly. As far as the density distribution is concerned, the flow rate, melt temperature, and mold closing velocity have insignificant effects on the density distribution in comparison with the mold temperature.     

Birefringence in injection‐compression molding of amorphous polymers: Simulation and experiment

The influence of the processing variables on the residual birefringence was analyzed for polystyrene and polycarbonate disks obtained by injection‐compression molding under various processing conditions. The processing variables studied were melt and mold temperatures, compression stroke, and switchover time. The modeling of flow‐induced residual stresses and birefringence of amorphous polymers in injection‐compression molded center‐gated disks was carried out using a numerical scheme based on a hybrid finite element/finite difference/control volume method. A nonlinear viscoelastic constitutive equation and stress‐optical rule were used to model frozen‐in flow stresses in moldings. The filling, compression, packing, and cooling stages were considered. Thermally‐induced residual birefringence was calculated using the linear viscoelastic and photoviscoelastic constitutive equations combined with the first‐order rate equation for volume relaxation and the master curves for the Young's relaxation modulus and strain‐optical coefficient functions. The residual birefringence in injection‐compression moldings was measured. The effects of various processing conditions on the measured and simulated birefringence distribution Δn and average transverse birefringence <n_rr?n_θθ> were elucidated. Comparison of the birefringence in disks manufactured by the injection molding and injection‐compression molding was made. The predicted and measured birefringence is found to be in fair agreement. POLYM. ENG. SCI., 2013. © 2013 Society of Plastics Engineers     

Numerical Simulation for Injection Molding with a Rapidly Heated Mold,Part II: Birefringence Prediction

In the accompanying paper, Part I, the advantages of the rapid thermal response (RTR) molding process were investigated for thin-wall-mold filling by employing coupled analysis of flow and heat transfer. Besides the complete filling of the cavity, frozen-in molecular orientation is another major quality issue in thin wall molding. The frozen-in orientation causes residual stress and birefringence, and potential part distortion. The present work focuses on the prediction and visualization of birefringence in RTR-molded parts. To calculate birefringence, flow-induced residual stress is computed first and the stress-optical law is then applied. The simulation results show that the amount of molecular orientation, residual stress, and birefringence level considerably decrease in the RTR-molding process. The effect of the mold temperature on the level of birefringence was also studied and predicted birefringence patterns were compared with experimental results for a thin-walled rectangular strip. Both predicted and experimental patterns of birefringence are in agreement on the observation that the birefringence level diminishes significantly when the mold temperature is raised to above the glass transition temperature.     

An experimental study on the injection molding of thermosetting polyester resin

An experimental study was conducted on the injection molding of a thermosetting polyester resin. For the study, a general-purpose unsaturated polyester resin was used, with benzoyl peroxide as initiator. A differential scanning calorimeter (DSC) was used for studying the curing kinetics, under isothermal curing conditions. A plunger-type injection-molding apparatus was constructed, and a rectangular mold cavity with glass windows on both sides was constructed, which permitted us to record on a film the changes in stress birefringence patterns in the mold cavity during the molding operation (i.e., during the isothermal cure, post cure, and subsequent cooling), using a crossed circular polariscope. The injection-molded specimens were used to determine the distribution of the degree of cure at various positions in the flow direction, and to relate the degree of cure to the dynamic mechanical properties.     

Some aspects of orientation in injection molded objects

The birefringences of injection molded plates and the birefringence during steady, isothermal shear flow were compared for some amorphous polymers. The materials studied were a polystyrene, a “toughened” polystyrene and an acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene copolymer. The birefringence of the plates, notably the maximum value for the average over the thickness was found to be related to the shear stress at the cavity wall that had occurred during the mold filling process. This relationship was independent of temperature. To a good approximation, it was also the same as the relationship between the flow birefringence and the shear stress at the wall in isothermal channel flow. It thus appears that the anisotropy of injection molded objects is dominated by the shear stresses during the mold filling process regardless of the temperature and of the macroscopic rate of deformation.     

Viscoelastic flow analysis of surface morphology on injection‐molded polypropylene

The molecular orientation of a frozen layer in an injection‐molded specimen of a polypropylene–rubber blend was investigated. A typical V‐shaped pattern of birefringence was observed from the surface to the core in a crosscut section. From the comparison of the V‐patterns near the gate to the flow end, it was assumed that a frozen layer formed from the surface to a depth of 0.06 mm in a plaque (3 mm thickness) during the injection molding filling process. Numerical viscoelastic analysis of the fountain flow was carried out using an original 2D unsteady flow simulation program and ignored crystallization. A large extensional deformation formed just when the molten polymer contacted the cavity wall and the deformation immediately froze. A layer with a small birefringence between the surface and the shear‐oriented layer was divided into two parts. The depth profile of birefringence was compared to the principal stress difference calculated by numerical analysis. POLYM. ENG. SCI., 2010. © 2010 Society of Plastics Engineers     

Numerical modeling of injection/compression molding for center-gated disk: Part I. Injection molding with viscoelastic compressible fluid model

The present study attempted to numerically simulate the process in detail by developing an appropriate physical modeling and the corresponding numerical analysis for injection molding and injection/compression molding processes of centergated disks. In Part I, a physical modeling and associated numerical analysis of injection molding with a compressible viscoelastic fluid model are presented. In the distribution of birefringence, the packing procedure results in the inner peaks in addition to the outer peaks near the mold surface, and values of the inner peaks increase with the packing time. Also, values of the density in the core region increase with the packing time. From the numerical results, we also found that birefringence becomes smaller as the melt temperature gets higher and that it is insignificantly affected by the flow rate and the mold temperature. As far as the density distribution is concerned, mold temperature affects the distribution of density especially near the wall. But it was not significantly affected by flow rate and melt temperature. Numerical results of birefringence coincided with experimental data qualitatively, but not quantitatively.     

蒸汽加热模具及模具变温辅助控制装置的研制

对高光无痕注射成型工艺的成型装置和辅助控制系统进行了研究和开发,介绍了蒸汽加热注射成型工艺原理。通过辅助系统来控制蒸汽加热模具的型腔温度,特殊的水道设计使模具型腔的温度能够迅速升至熔体的热变形温度以上,进而获得高光表面制品。同时指出了蒸汽加热模具在模具材料的选择、测温点的分布等方面的设计思想,阐述了辅助控制装置的组成部分及控制原理。结果表明,蒸汽加热模具可加工高表面光洁度、无熔接痕、无流痕的塑料制品,可免除后续喷涂工艺,降低了生产成本,成型周期由120 s 缩短到43 s。     

Thin‐wall injection molding of polypropylene using molds with different laser‐induced periodic surface structures

In injection molding, high pressure is required to completely replicate the mold geometry, due to the viscosity of thermoplastic polymers, the reduced thickness of the cavity, and the low mold temperature. The reduction of the drag required to fill a thin‐wall injection molding cavity can be promoted by inducing the strong slip of the polymer melt over the mold surface, which occurs within the first monolayer of macromolecules adsorbed at the wall. In this work, the effects of different laser‐induced periodic surface structures (LIPSS) topographies on the reduction of the melt flow resistance of polypropylene were characterized. Ultrafast laser processing of the mold surface was used to manufacture nano‐scale ripples with different orientation and morphology. Moreover, the effects of those injection molding parameters that mostly affect the interaction between the mold surface and the molten polymer were evaluated. The effect of LIPSS on the slip of the polymer melt was modeled to understand the effect of the different treatments on the pressure required to fill the thin‐wall cavity. The results show that LIPPS can be used to treat injection mold surfaces to promote the onset of wall slip, thus reducing the injection pressure up to 13%. POLYM. ENG. SCI., 59:1889–1896, 2019. © 2019 Society of Plastics Engineers     

热塑性塑料注塑制品内应力分析

主要讨论了热塑性塑料注塑制品内应力的分类及造成各种内应力的主要因素。具体分析了各种因素,包括注塑机选用、模具设计、制品造型设计、机械加工和注塑工艺及热处理对制品内应力的影响,并提出了应采取的措施和制品内应力的测试方法。     

Orientation development and relaxation in injection molding of amorphous polymers

Orientation development in amorphous polymer melts being vitrified in an injection molding process is described. Predictions of orientation development are based on the argument that the stress-optical laws are valid in the molten stare and birefringence values appropriate to the stress levels at the time of vitrification remain. This theory is compared to birefringence distributions determined in injection molded parts.     

Injection molding of thermotropic liquid crystal polymers

Thermotropic liquid crystal polymers consist of rod-like molecules and are often called “self reinforcing thermoplastics.” Their rheological behaviors as well as orientation development during processing are often very similar to those of short fiber-filled composites. Without reinforcement, the polymer shows superior mechanical properties to conventional glass fiber-reinforced engineering resins. The orientation distribution in the crosssection as well as flow patterns in the molded thermotropic polymers are clearly visible to the naked eye due to color differences. This makes it particularly convenient to study the orientation distribution as well as the flow patterns of packing, back flow, jetting, flow instabilities, and weld line formation in injection molding. This paper discusses physical properties of a typical ther motropic polymer and their relationship to mold filling process in the injection molding.     

Some relationships between injection molding conditions and the characteristics of vitrified molded parts

The various mold filling phenomena influencing the characteristics of fabricated parts are surveyed. The phenomena leading to jetting in injection mold filling are considered. These are associated with the magnitude of swell by the melt as it exits the gate into the mold. Special attention is given to the influence of non-isothermal runner flow. A theory of extrudate swell of polymer melts with temperature profiles is developed using Tanner's unconstrained recovery theory. In the. absence of jetting, mold filling by a simple advancing front takes place. The hydrodynamics of the advancing front and the stress fields in the flowing melt are determined. Analysis and modeling are presented based on the use of hydrodynamic lubrication theory involving a solid layer along the mold wall and a hot isothermal melt core. This theory is compared with experimental measurements of pressure losses in mold filling. The development of birefringence in injection molding processes is analyzed. Birefringence distributions are due to frozen-in flow birefringence. A new experimental study is presented and its results compared with theoretical predictions. The problem of thermal stresses in injection molded parts is considered.     

Theoretical and experimental studies of anisotropic shrinkage in injection moldings of various polyesters

A novel approach to predict anisotropic shrinkage of slow crystallizing polymers in injection moldings was proposed, using the flow‐induced crystallization, frozen‐in molecular orientation, elastic recovery, and PVT equation of state. In the present study, three different polyesters, polyethylene terephthalate, polybutylene terephthalate, and polyethylene‐2,6‐naphthalate (PEN), are used. The anisotropic thermal expansion and compressibility affected by the frozen‐in orientation function and the elastic recovery that was not frozen during moldings were introduced to obtain the in‐plane anisotropic shrinkages. The frozen‐in orientation function was calculated from the amorphous contribution based on the frozen‐in and intrinsic amorphous birefringence and crystalline contribution based on the crystalline orientation function determined from the elastic recovery and intrinsic crystalline birefringence. To model the elastic recovery and frozen‐in stresses related to birefringence during molding process, a nonlinear viscoelastic constitutive equation was used with the temperature‐dependent viscosity and relaxation time. Occurrence of the flow‐induced crystallization was introduced through the elevation of melting temperature affected by entropy production during flow of the viscoelastic melt. Kinetics of the crystallization was modeled using Nakamura and Hoffman‐Lauritzen equations with the rate constant affected by the elevated melting temperature. Numerous injection molding runs were carried out by varying the packing time, packing pressure, flow rate, melt and mold temperature, and anisotropic shrinkage of moldings were measured. The experimental results were compared with the simulated data and found in a fair agreement. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 102: 3526–3544, 2006     

Theoretical and experimental studies of anisotropic shrinkage in injection moldings of semicrystalline polymers

A novel approach to predict anisotropic shrinkage of semicrystalline polymers in injection moldings was proposed using flow‐induced crystallization, frozen‐in molecular orientation, elastic recovery, and PVT equation of state. The anisotropic thermal expansion and compressibility affected by the frozen‐in orientation function and the elastic recovery that was not frozen during moldings were introduced to obtain the in‐plane anisotropic shrinkages. The frozen‐in orientation function was calculated from amorphous and crystalline contributions. The amorphous contribution was based on the frozen‐in and intrinsic amorphous birefringence, whereas the crystalline contribution was based on the crystalline orientation function, which was determined from the elastic recovery and intrinsic crystalline birefringence. To model the elastic recovery and frozen‐in stresses related to birefringence during molding process, a nonlinear viscoelastic constitutive equation was used with temperature‐ and crystallinity‐dependent viscosity and relaxation time. Occurrence of the flow‐induced crystallization was introduced through the elevation of melting temperature affected by entropy production during flow of the viscoelastic melt. Kinetics of the crystallization was modeled using Nakamura and Hoffman‐Lauritzen equations with the rate constant affected by the elevated melting temperature. Numerous injection molding runs on polypropylene of various molecular weights were carried out by varying the packing time, flow rate, melt temperature, and mold temperature. The anisotropic shrinkage of the moldings was measured. Comparison of the experimental and simulated results indicated a good predictive capability of the proposed approach. POLYM. ENG. SCI., 46:712–728, 2006. © 2006 Society of Plastics Engineers