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J. Llado , B. Sanchez
Department of Mechanical Engineering, CPS, University of Zaragoza, 50018 Zaragoza, Spain
a r t i c l e
i n f o
a b s t r a c t
Article history:
This paper presents results of the study of inuence of injection parameters of PVC ttings
moulding on the formation of blush. The aim was to determine the cause of the blush and
predict its evolution in relation to the injection rate and melt temperature, based on Finite
3 December 2007
Element (FE) moulding software. The computation model was tted by means of experimen-
tal tests carried out with a prototype tting mould. Once the cavity pressure was veried,
the analysis of results provided by the software such as the shear stress distribution around
the gate and the ow front temperature enabled the identication of the injection rate as
Keywords:
the principal reason for the aw, the melt temperature being a secondary factor.
2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
PVC
Blush
Injection pressure
Flow rate
Contents
1.
2.
3.
4.
Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Experimental method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
2.1. Material and part geometry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
2.2. Pressure sensors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
2.3. Injection machine and injection parameters. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Injection modelling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Results and discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
4.1. Experimental results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
4.2. Numerical results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
4.3. Comparison of experimental and theoretical results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
4.3.1. Pressure analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
4.3.2. Flow front temperature. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
4.3.3. Shear stress . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Corresponding author.
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5.
1.
Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Acknowledgement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Introduction
Polyvinyl chloride (PVC) is most commonly used in the construction sector because of its excellent weather, chemical
and ame resistance properties. In recent years, its use has
been growing in specialty injection moulding markets such
as domestic appliances, business machines, medical devices
and consumer electronics. Despite its advantageous properties, the injection of PVC is regarded as troublesome by some
moulders (Gruber and Gockowski, 1992), because this material often decomposes and burns during processing, releasing
hydrochloric acid, which rusts the equipment; in addition,
surface defects can appear. To overcome the perception of
the difcult injection of this material, the processability of
PVC compounds has been improved by development of highow (low-viscosity) PVC grades through the use of acrylic
processing aids. These aids promote PVC fusion, modify the
melt rheology and/or provide lubrication. Some processing aid
products are designed to serve one of these functions while
others provide a combination of functions (Stevenson and
Einhorn, 1993; Disson and Girois, 2003). Furthermore, significant advances have also been made in processing equipment
and conditions. Previous experiments have also indicated that
the study of processing parameters is very important because
just setting them correctly covers about 90% of the problems
encountered in PVC injection, such as degradation (Garcia et
al., 2004a) or surface defects (Weir, 1994).
Companies always strive to produce high-quality parts
while lowering their costs; however, signicant time delays
and increasing costs may occur if part design is not carefully
evaluated or the injection process is not completely understood. The factors involved in the injection moulding process
that have a great inuence on the nal quality of plastic
products can be classied into the following four categories:
materials, moulding machine, model design and processing
conditions (Min, 2003). Each factor, accurately chosen and controlled, requires a multi-disciplinary knowledge to improve
and optimize the nal product, but the process of lling a cavity mould with a plastic melt is complex due to signicant
interactions between variables, and this requires particular
attention when setting up the machine.
Injection moulding software packages are widely used to
analyse product performance and processability and represent a powerful tool to evaluate the moulding conditions with
a high level of detail because they provide a lot of predicted
data that are not normally available during experimental tests
(Spina, 2004). A thorough analysis of the numerical results
enables potential problems in product injection to be identied and resolved by proposal of a new set of process variables
that improve the part quality, although huge amounts of
computer-generated data and complex nonlinear interactions
between all process variables frequently make the selection
of the optimal design and process parameters very difcult
(Turng and Peic, 2002).
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2.
Experimental method
2.1.
2.2.
Pressure sensors
For a better understanding and control of the injection process, it is important to understand the evolution of some
variables that can be checked with the results provided by
injection moulding packages. The plastic pressure in the
mould and the melt temperature are the two variables. At
present, there are no techniques available to measure the
actual melt temperature prole in the cavity without affecting the ow (Garcia et al., 2004b). A previous attempt was
made by the authors to measure the melt temperature with
an infrared sensor, mounted at the same level as the mould
wall, but this sensor was not able to measure the maximum
melt temperature in the central layer of the ow, and it only
provided the evolution of the temperature near the mould
wall, where there was a temperature gradient. So, experimentally, the thermal degradation of the PVC is difcult to
determine.
In this work, to ensure the quality of PVC injected parts, the
quantitative assessment of cavity pressure history is obtained
using two Kistler 6157BSP0 quartz sensors placed at locations
j o u r n a l o f m a t e r i a l s p r o c e s s i n g t e c h n o l o g y 2 0 4 ( 2 0 0 8 ) 17
P1 and P2 in the sprue bushing (Fig. 2). The lower part of the
sprue bushing is rectangular to avoid the relative rotation of
this element that could preload the sensors when the nozzle leans against the mould. The voltage provided by both
sensors is amplied and transmitted through an Adaptor DAS16 multi-channel acquisition system to a PC (Fig. 3), where
the data are registered by means of DFPLUS software, where
some values must be supplied such as the number of injection cycles, the number of values recorded per second and the
amplier features.
2.3.
The injection moulding trials were performed at Pipelife Hispanias facilities, with a Cincinnati Milacron 250 injection
moulding machine, specic for PVC injection, with maximum
j o u r n a l o f m a t e r i a l s p r o c e s s i n g t e c h n o l o g y 2 0 4 ( 2 0 0 8 ) 17
3.
Injection modelling
4.
4.1.
Experimental results
For both temperatures and all injection rates, the pressure proles recorded by both sensors are qualitatively similar. As an
example, Fig. 7 shows a typical pressure prole measured by
both sensors during the injection of the part at 195 C and 25%
injection rate. As soon as the ow front reaches the sensor,
measurement starts and two stages can be observed. Initially,
during the lling of the sprue, the curve rises sharply due to the
large drop in pressure. Then the second step corresponds to
the lling of the part, where pressure increases slightly since
the part is thick and it does not offer too much resistance to
be lled. Finally, the beginning of the packing phase can be
seen where the pressure increases sharply again. If all records
are analysed, it is observed that the maximum pressure at the
Moldow FEM software has been used to simulate the injection trials. First, the part was meshed, as shown in Fig. 5. The
sprue was modelled using 7 cold runner elements that fed a
semicylindrical cavity of 276 shell triangular elements.
The properties of the PVC Benvic IR705 are listed in Table 1,
and the critical shear rate and degradation temperature are
about 0.2 MPa and 215 C, respectively. Fig. 6 shows the viscosity plotted against the shear rate, at different temperatures,
provided by the material supplier.
Value
3
Density (kg/dm )
Conductivity (W m1 C1 )
Glass transition temperature ( C)
Specic heat (J kg1 C1 )
Shrinkage (%)
1.32
0.13
7980
1767
0.6
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4.2.
Numerical results
Initial simulations performed with the rheological characteristics provided by the material supplier, showed a difference of
about 30% between the experimental and theoretical pressure
data at the end of the lling stage. The reliability of the numerical simulation depends mainly on the rheological data of the
PVC. Therefore, to characterise the behaviour of the polymer
during injections at 195 C and 205 C, the maximum pressure
values recorded by both sensors at the end of the lling of
the sprue have been used to calculate the viscosity function
according to Poiseuilles law, as Eq. (1) states:
=
4r4
P
8QL
(1)
where (Pa s) is the viscosity, r (m) and L (m) are the average
radius of the sprue and the distance between both sensors,
respectively, Q (m3 /s) is the ow rate and P (Pa) is the drop
in pressure. The adjustment of the viscosity curves at 195 C
and 205 C is performed by tting a potential function to the
experimental values obtained with Eq. (1). If these two experimental viscosity curves are compared with the rheological
data of the PVC obtained by means of a rheometer (Fig. 8),
it can be observed that the viscosity data at 195 C coincide
4.3.
Comparison of experimental and theoretical
results
The correlation between the theoretical and experimental
results enables the reliability of the PVC tting numerical
model to be checked. This integration is made through comparison of the pressure at both sensor locations, and once the
cavity pressure has been veried, the analysis of the shear
stress zone around the gate and the ow front temperature in
the central layer will enable the causes of the blush to be identied and determine the inuence of the injection parameters
on that defect.
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4.3.2.
4.3.1.
Pressure analysis
To determine if the blush can be produced by thermal degradation, the numerical temperature results obtained by Moldow
FEM software in the zone around the gate were analysed.
Table 2 shows the maximum values in the central layer for
all injection simulations.
The theoretical results are higher than their respective
injection melt temperatures and this indicates that when the
material ows along the mould, its temperature increases due
to shear, this effect being more important at 195 C as the viscosity function at this temperature is higher. It is interesting to
note that the injection speed is a signicant parameter since it
turns out that the maximum temperature depends on it. During injection, the maximum temperature in the melt varies
slightly for both inlet temperatures, and in any case, the maximum value exceeds the degradation temperature of 215 C
therefore, the blush is not produced by thermal degradation.
4.3.3.
Shear stress
195 C
Max. temperature ( C)
Max. temperature ( C)
30
25
22
20
18
15
212.2
211.6
211.0
210.5
209.5
208.6
25
22
20
18
16
203.2
202.7
202.0
201.1
199.4
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Acknowledgement
The authors would like to thank Pipelife Hispania S.A. for
experimental support in performing the injection tests.
references
5.
Conclusions
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degradation during injection molding: experimental
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Garcia, J.L., Koelling, K.W., Summers, J.W., 2004b. Computational
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injection molding compounds. J. Vinyl Technol. 14 (2),
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Min, B.H., 2003. A study on quality monitoring of
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optimization for injection moulding. J. Eng. Manuf. 216,
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