Controlling Morphology of

Injection Molded Structural Foams

by Mold Design and Processing
Parameters*
RRER AND VOLKER ALTSTA
DTy
ANDREAS N. J. SPO

Department of Polymer Engineering, University of Bayreuth, Germany

ABSTRACT: By the invention of foam processing techniques using physical
blowing agents, the area of foam injection molding has caught the attention of
product developers in industry as well as of researchers. Compared to
conventional injection molding, the foaming approach delivers a great potential
in the manufacturing as well as in the part itself, offering a monetary benefit,
being vantages for example automotive and consumer goods producer
(Hyde, L.J., Kishbaugh, L.A. and Katterman, J.A. (2002) [1]. How Microcellular
Foam Molding Changes the Cost Structure of Injection Molded Automotive
Components: A Review of the Process and Automotive Applications, SAE
Technical Paper Series). The pros are facing several cons in the part quality,
notably an impaired surface finish, an over-pronounced loss in mechanical
strength and toughness or some uncertainties in subsequent processing steps
like varnishing and plastic welding. Actual researchers are approaching those
challenges in different ways (Dassow, J. (2003) [2]. Foamed Parts with
Excellent Surface Quality, Kunststoffe-Plast Europe, 93(9): 65). On the one
hand, the choice of the appropriate polymeric materials has a big impact on the
morphologies and the properties of the obtained foam injection molded parts.
The mold as well as the processing parameters have a big effect on the
obtainable foam morphologies and thus the final part properties.
This study presents some possibilities to control the morphology of structural
foams at high-density reductions (>50%) by an intelligent mold and process
design. Parameters affecting the morphology of the foamed part like the
foaming temperature, the cavity pressure, and the expansion ratio are varied.

*Parts of this revised paper were published in its original form at FOAMSTM TopCon 2006,
Chicago, September 1314, 2006.
yAuthor to whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: altstaedt@uni-bayreuth.de
Figure 6 appears in color online: http://cel.sagepub.com

JOURNAL OF CELLULAR PLASTICS Volume 43 July/September 2007

0021-955X/07/04/05 031318 $10.00/0
DOI: 10.1177/0021955X07079043
SAGE Publications 2007
Los Angeles, London, New Delhi and Singapore

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Structural properties of the foamed part like surface finish, overall density, and
skin layer-thickness as well as mechanical properties are examined.
KEY WORDS: polypropylene, structural foam, foam injection molding, mold
design, high density reduction.
INTRODUCTION AND MOTIVATION

he manufacturing of structural foams by injection molding is

actually not a new technology, but represents an approach that was
already established in the 1970s [3]. Since then foam injection molding
has been widely used to manufacture thick-walled parts, e.g., furniture
and television chassis, using chemical blowing agents. In contrast to
standard injection molding, the cavity volume is not filled volumetrically
but the amount of the injected gas-laden polymer is reduced. The
expanding polymer leads to a complete filling of the volume and a
structural foam with a density lower than that of the compact part is
obtained. However, the often encountered uncertainty regarding the
resulting mechanical properties as well as the usually degraded surface
finish of such parts are severe limiting factors for modern day
applications which prevent a wide-spread utilization of this technique.
Taking into account that foam injection molding in general not only
implies a potential weight and material saving regarding the final part
but also promises significant processing advantages as a function of the
gas content, it is not surprising that a massive and worldwide effort has
been undertaken during the last years to further establish foam
injection molding using physical blowing agents. As in foam extrusion
[46], the use of environmentally friendly physical blowing agents, such
as nitrogen (N2) and carbon dioxide (CO2) in theory offers the possibility
to really exploit the potential benefits of foam injection molding. In
addition, suitable machine technologies, such as the MuCell-Technology
by Trexel Inc. are now commercially available.
In theory, several pronounced advantages concerning both the
processing as well as the properties of the structural foam itself can be
utilized by the exploitation of physical instead of chemical blowing
agents. The processing advantages can be summarized to be a result of
the decreasing melt viscosity due to the dissolved gas [7,8]. This effect
effectively lowers the required injection pressure and/or increases the
flow path/wall thickness ratio. As the expanding melt leads to a
homogeneous internal holding pressure, the conventional step of
applying a holding pressure can be reduced or even eliminated when
processing gas-laden melts. Subsequently, without the holding pressure,
the melt pressure in the cavity is lower which allows the use of machines

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315

with comparatively low clamping forces. When injecting a reduced

amount of hot melt, a lower amount of thermal energy has to be removed
from the mold before ejecting the part as compared to standard injection
molding; another effect contributing to the reduction of cycle time.
In addition, the uniform internal holding pressure due to the volume
expansion reduces part warpage and the occurrence of sinkholes. Last
but not the least, both the potential weight saving as well as the possibly
high specific bending properties of those parts as a result of the integral
foam structure are of key interest for modern technical applications.
However, current foam injection molding techniques encounter
several common problems. The injection molding process itself already
is affected by a large number of factors; the number of which increases
significantly when adding a blowing agent to the melt. As a result, the
determination of suitable processing conditions becomes more complex
and, more importantly, an often severe uncertainty regarding the
process stability and reproducibility is encountered.
A fundamental understanding of all the relevant steps along the
process chain is mandatory in order to avoid some of the general
problems. The knowledge of critical properties of the gaspolymer
mixture as well as of the geometric constraints given by the mold
determining the pressure drop rate [9] and subsequent cell nucleation
[10] as well as the expansion and stabilization of the foam [11] are only
some of the factors that have to be considered when attempting to fully
utilize the potential of foam injection molding.
One significant and illuminating problem is the usually low surface
finish quality of such foamed parts [12]. The reason for this effect can be
found when analyzing the mold-filling step in detail an approach that
also readily points at possible technical solutions. In the plasticizing
barrel, the gas is dissolved in the molten polymer at high pressures of up to
200 bar. The pressure in the cavity itself usually is atmospheric
pressure, 1 bar. When injecting the melt into the mold, the immediate
pressure drop at the melt front shifts the phase equilibrium of the
polymergas solution towards a lower gas solubility; as a consequence, the
melt locally becomes oversaturated with dissolved gas and the first cells
are nucleated already during the initial part of the mold filling. As a result
of the typical fountain flow, these bubbles are moved to the interface
between the melt and the cavity wall. The final part surface shows more
or less pronounced silvery veils that are characteristic for such
injection molded structural foams, independent of gas type and content.
To avoid this premature foaming during the mold filling step, a gas
counter-pressure can be applied in a sealed cavity [3]. As a second
alternative, the exploitation of a hot cavity surface allows the polymer to

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stay longer in the viscous state before solidifying [13]. Although this
approach does not eliminate the premature foaming, the part surface
finish is significantly improved.
A second issue narrowing the range of application of structural foams
concerns the limitation of achievable density reductions, which are often
<20% for many technical parts. In the most conventional approach,
molds originally used for compact injection molding are also used for the
foam injection molding using the low-pressure approach with a reduced
shot-volume. As typical molds exhibit a wall thickness below 3 mm
coupled with a high ratio of flow path to wall thickness, these geometric
conditions effectively limit the density reduction as the expandable
polymer available to fill the remaining volume tends to freeze prematurely. This limitation can be overcome by filling the mold completely
with the gas-laden melt the high-pressure approach using breathing
molds [3]. Following this complete filling, the cavity volume is increased
either by a core pull or by a defined opening of the mold. By the use
of specialized molds with shearing edges, density reductions exceeding
50% can easily be achieved. However, as the breathing is usually
limited to one direction, the increase in local part thickness depends on
the relative orientation of the section to the opening direction; an effect
that needs to be considered especially for free-form geometries.
As an injection molded foam consists of compact skin layers and a
cellular core, it must be described as an inhomogeneous material with
varying properties across the part thickness [14]. The compact skin
layers dominate the mechanical behavior and their properties usually
are comparable to those of the compact materials. However, the mechanical performance of the foamed core critically depends on the foam
density as well as on the actual cell size and cell size distribution [15,16].
In injection molded structural foams, the cell size distribution usually
varies across the part thickness. In close proximity to the compact
layers, the average cell size is rather small but increases steadily towards
the center of the part.
At present, significant research efforts are directed towards obtaining
structural injection molded foams with a uniform cellular structure and
a small average cell size even at pronounced density reductions in order
to limit the often encountered severe degradations in mechanical
performance. The slowly emerging understanding of all relevant processing steps and of the subsequent evolution of the cellular structure
indicates that this aim can only be achieved by tailoring the processing
conditions as well the materials rheological properties for a given mold
technology. Significant advantages can be expected for the future when
already available tooling capabilities are exploited further, especially

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317

when used in combination with optimized material systems and adjusted

processing parameters.
EXPERIMENTAL DETAILS

The approaches towards further improved injection molded structural

foams discussed above require the use of sophisticated mold technologies
for controlling all processing steps. Consequently, a specially designed
mold has been developed which fulfils the demands for tailoring the
injection molding process of structural foams.
The molded part had a rectangular shape with 270
70 mm2 with one
gate location at a narrow end, whereas the final sprue diameter was set
to 5 mm subsequent to the shut-off nozzle of the hot-runner system.
In order to meet present day requirements, the initial part thickness for
injection was set at 2 mm, whereas the cavity volume for the breathing
mold technology can be increased by the implementation of shearing
edges and can be controlled as a function of the mold opening distance.
For controlling the cavity temperature, tempering channels for fluid
media (water, oil) are located at a small distance below the cavity
surface. In addition, several temperature and pressure transducers were
implemented, which can be used for data recording during the whole
injection and foaming process.
The machine used for all experiments described here was a 250 t Engel
Victory injection molding machine equipped with a 70 mm MuCell
plasticizing unit. The polymer is a specially developed type of branched
polypropylene (PP), provided by Borealis, Austria, suitable for structural
foam molding as the melt flow index (MFI) is set at 14 g/10 min.
In addition, this particular PP is characterized by an enhanced elongational viscosity as compared to linear injection molding grades with
a similar MFI. Throughout the experiments, the polymer was processed
at a melt temperature of 190 C with a gas content of 2 wt% of nitrogen
and was injected into the mold at a constant speed of 100 mm/s.
Utilizing the breathing mold technology for all foaming experiments,
the mold cavity was initially filled volumetrically with the gas-laden
melt. Cavity surface temperatures of 20 and 80 C were realized by
the use of cold and hot water, respectively. Following the application
of a given holding pressure of 750 bar for 4 s, the pressure drop was
initialized by opening the mold at a defined distance ranging from 1
to 4 mm, resulting in final part thicknesses between 3 and 6 mm.
Subsequently, a cooling time of about 60 s at the final part thickness was
necessary in order to ensure full stabilization of the foamed part prior to
ejection (Figure 1).

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Figure 1. Surface appearance of foamed PP parts processed with different cavity surface
temperatures when injecting the gas-laden melt, left: 80 C versus right: 20 C.

In order to evaluate the cellular morphology of the final solid-state

components as a function of the selected processing conditions, the foam
samples were fractured after cooling in liquid nitrogen. The obtained
fractures surfaces were analyzed using a digital light microscope
(Keyence VHX100) at 50
magnification. Mechanical tests were performed on flat specimens, machined out of the manufactured plates with
a width of 10 mm and a length 20 times the thickness. Three-point
bending test were carried out according to ISO 178 with a constant
crosshead speed of 5 mm/min using a Zwick universal testing machine
operating at room temperature. Non-notched Charpy impact tests
were performed using an instrumented Roell-Amsler impactor equipped
with a 50 J hammer at room temperature, according to ISO 179/eU.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Within this study, different approaches towards optimizing the

appearance and properties of structural PP foams are presented.
Initially, the emphasis was placed on the evaluation of the influence of

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Controlling Morphology of Structural Foams

Table 1. Overview of experiments and specimen nomenclature.
Parameter
Mold
temperature ( C)
Breathing
distance (mm)
Breathing
delay (sec)

T1.1

T1.2

T2.1 T2.2 T2.3 T2.4 T2.5 T3.1 T3.2 T3.3

20

20-> 80->20

20

20

20

20

20

20

20

20

1.6

1.6

an increased cavity surface temperature on the resulting optical surface

quality of such injection molded foams as well as on the resulting density
reduction and mechanical performance of these parts at a constant
part thickness of 3.6 mm. In addition, different final part thicknesses
were realized by a variation of the mold opening distance. Lastly, the
breathing delay as well as the melt temperature on the evolution
of the cellular morphology of such PP integral foams is demonstrated.
A detailed overview of the different experiments is presented in Table 1.
Variation of the Cavity Surface Temperature
For improving the part surface quality, a tempering system based on
two water circuits was used. The temperature of the cooling circuit was
set at 20 C whereas the temperature of the heating circuit was set at
90 C. Prior to the injection of the gas-laden PP melt, the mold cavity was
heated to a temperature of 80 C. The required time for heating the
cavity surface from room temperature to 80 C was about 40 s. Following
injection of the polymer, the circuits were immediately switched to
cooling.
In Figure 1 comparative photographs of foam injection molded PP
parts processed at different cavity surface temperatures are shown. All
parameters beside the mold surface temperature were kept constant,
though it was necessary to increase the cooling time from 60 to 80 s
when using the preheated mold during injection of this particular PP
grade. As can be seen, increasing the cavity temperature to 80 C led to a
significantly improved surface finish of the PP part as compared to the
part manufactured with a cold mold. However, this benefit comes at the
expense of the cycle time as the complete cycle time for preheating and
cooling the mold increased by about 60 s as compared to the foam
injection molding with a cold mold.
As discussed before, the mechanical performance of such structural
foams critically depends on the thickness of the skin layers as well as

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on the cell size distribution in the core. Comparative light micrographs

of the resulting PP foam cross-sections as a function of the cavity
surface temperature are shown in Figure 2. Using the preheated mold
(T1.2), the thickness of the compact skin layers is reduced by 20% as
compared to the part processed using the cold mold (T1.1), as
summarized in Table 2. In addition, the preheated mold leads to
a significantly broadened cell size distribution of this particular PP
under these operating conditions. These differences in morphology can
be directly correlated with the mold temperature.
The thinner compact surface layers are a result of the lower thermal
gradient between melt and mold steel and a less rapid transfer of
thermal energy in case of the preheated mold. As the opening of the mold
occurs at a fixed point in time (4 s after complete filling), independent
of the cavity surface temperature, more polymer containing gas is still
at elevated temperatures suitable for cell nucleation and growth.
Cell growth and the final stabilization of the cellular morphology also
are strongly affected by the local variation in melt temperature;

Figure 2. Morphology of the structural PP foams processed with different cavity surface
temperatures, left: 80 C versus right: 20 C.

Table 2. Thickness of the individual layers of structural PP foams after injection at

different mold temperatures.
Layer thickness of structural foams
Trial

Mold
temperature ( C)

Upper compact
skin (mm)

Foamed
core (mm)

Lower compact
skin (mm)

T1.1
T1.2

20
80

552
442

2481
2614

578
460

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the onset of crystallization of this semicrystalline matrix accompanied

by a rapid change in viscosity finally determines the end of the
morphology evolution.
Although it is not explicitly demonstrated in this study, such a variation in mold surface temperature requires an adjustment of the melt
rheological properties, more explicitly of the melt elongational properties.
The particular PP grade used here is characterized by a higher elongational melt viscosity as compared to comparable linear types with an
identical MFI. The shown cellular morphologies cannot be achieved
under these processing conditions with linear PP types, as the low
elongational viscosity leads to a significant rupture of cell walls
during the expansion process and, subsequently, to a pronounced
cell coalescence. This influence of the molecular architecture of
thermoplastic polymers on the resulting foam morphology is a wellestablished phenomenon [1720]; as shown here, long chain branching is
an effective way of optimizing the melt properties for foam injection
molding, too.
As expected, the coarser cellular morphology of the PP integral foam
prepared with the preheated mold coupled with the reduced compact
layer thickness is reflected by the results of the bending and the Charpy
impact tests, shown in Figure 3.

Relative specific values (%)

150

Specific flexural modulus

Specific flexural strength
Specific flexural charpy impact

125
100
75
50
25
0
Compact
with mold
@20C

Foamed
with mold
@20C

Foamed
with mold
@80C

Figure 3. Comparative plot of bending properties of structural PP foams as a function

of the mold cavity temperature: flexural modulus and strength as well as the Charpy
impact strength.

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Table 3. Thickness of the layers and density reduction of the structural PP foams
as a function of the mold opening distance.
Layer thickness of structural foam

Density reduction

Trial

Part
thickness (mm)

Upper compact
skin (mm)

Foamed
core (mm)

Lower compact
skin (mm)

compact 
foam
%

compact

T2.1
T2.2
T2.3
T2.4
T2.5

2000
3000
4000
4800
5900

Compact
568
577
605
651

Compact
1752
2788
3706
4091

Compact
651
669
587
651

0
32.9
47.4
57.0
63.7

Density Reduction and Resulting Bending Performance for

Different Mold Opening Distances
The following section provides an overview of the structureproperty
relationship of the injection molded structural PP foams as a function
of the final part thickness. It should be noted that all foamed parts
have the same weight as the compact reference at a thickness of 2 mm,
reflecting the chosen specific processing conditions. All achieved part
thicknesses of the integral foams as well as the resulting density
reductions are summarized in Table 3. As can be seen, these specific
processing conditions have led to pronounced density reductions, significantly exceeding those of standard foam injection molded structures
manufactured by the low-pressure technique.
In Figure 4, the cellular morphologies of the PP parts processed with
the different mold opening distances (T2.22.5) are shown. It can be
seen that the thickness of the compact skin layers slightly increases
when increasing the opening displacement; the values are further
summarized in Table 3. Although this effect is rather small, the cellular
morphology becomes more inhomogeneous with an increasing part
thickness. Nevertheless, no cell wall ruptures in the foam cores can
be observed; results that again reflect the enhanced melt stability of
this particular PP grade even under these extreme conditions and
significant density reductions.
However, the plot of the absolute flexural modulus and maximum
bending stress as a function of the part thickness in Figure 5 (left)
clearly shows decreasing bending properties with an increasing thickness and corresponding increasing density reduction. As can be seen,
the initial rapid reduction in properties appears to level off at higher
density reductions.

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Figure 4. Comparative light micrographs of the morphologies of structural PP foams as a

function of the mold opening distance.

Yet, for design purposes, it is not the flexural modulus but rather the
specific bending stiffness of such integral structures that is important.
The resulting specific bending stiffness of such flat panel geometries
can be simply approximated by Equation (1):
Bending stiffness Modulus
Moment of inertia
E

width
thickness3
:
12

Equation (1) explains Bending stiffness of an integral foam as a function

of the material modulus and moment of inertia.
The parallel axis theorem by Steiner states that, the more the compact
skin layers are separated, the higher is the moment of inertia. On the
other hand, the bending stiffness also is affected by the measured
flexural modulus of the foams, which is significantly reduced. In order to
evaluate the overall potential of such integral foams as lightweight
design structures, the specific bending stiffness of the PP foams as
a function of the part weight per unit area is also shown in Figure 6.
This plot highlights that a similar increase in specific bending stiffness
as observed for the foams can only be realized for the compact materials
by a significant increase in part weight per unit area.
The strength of materials on the other hand is determined by failure
at its weakest point. The part with the lowest strength in structural
foams is the cellular core region. The lower the foam density and
the more inhomogeneous the cellular morphology, the higher is the

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Flexural modulus (GPa)

Flexural modulus
Flexural strength
3

90

60

30

0
2

3
4
5
Part thickness (mm)

6
120

4
Specific flexural modulus
(GPa/(g/cm3))

Flexural strength (MPa)

120

Specific flexural modulus

Specific flexural strength
3

90

60

30

0
2

3
4
5
Part thickness (mm)

Specific flexural strength

(MPa/(g/cm3))

324

Figure 5. Mechanical properties of structural PP foams as a function of the overall part

thickness at a constant weight per unit area: left: flexural modulus and strength; right:
specific values for flexural modulus and strength.

probability that early failure at low stresses will occur. It is therefore

not surprising that the integral PP foams show a rather low absolute
maximum bending stress. However, normalizing the data shown in
Figure 5 (right) to the actual specimen density shows that the specific
properties are not affected within experimental error.

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Controlling Morphology of Structural Foams

600
Specific flexural stiffness of foamed PP
Specific flexural stiffness of compact PP

500

6 mm

400
Eb * Iy =Eb*
300

(w *t 3 )
12
5 mm

200
4 mm

100
3 mm

0
0.0

0.2
Mass per unit area

0.4

0.6

(g/cm2)

Figure 6. Specific flexural stiffness of compact and foamed PP over a constant mass
per weight area unit.

Effect of Breathing Delay and Melt Temperature

When the final part thickness and the aspired density reduction are
fixed, the part properties still can be influenced by the processing
conditions. During and after the mold filling, the melt is being cooled
down rapidly due to heat transfer into the cold mold. As soon as the
crystallization temperature of the used polymer is reached, the melt
starts solidifying, beginning with the formation of a thin compact skin.
By further heat transfer, the molten polymer core constantly cools
down, leading to a steadily growing skin thickness. So far, there is no
difference to the cooling of conventional injection molding. In the
applied high-pressure foam injection molding approach, the mold is
opened rapidly, resulting in additional space for the polymer, accompanied by a sudden pressure reduction. Hence, the still molten core
starts foaming. By increasing the time between mold filling and
breathing, the morphology is affected tremendously, leading to thicker
skin layers and a thinner foamed core. When choosing higher melt
temperatures and a constant breathing delay, a bigger amount of heat

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has to be transferred out of the polymer melt. At the initial step of

foaming the temperature distribution inside of the part is higher and
less material has solidified, according to thinner compact skin layers of
the structural foams. In this study, the initial wall thickness prior to
breathing was 2 mm and the breathing distance was 2 mm, resulting
in a final structural foam thickness of 4 mm. The thicker the compact
skin layers grow, the less melt is left for foaming. When assuming that
the cell nucleation density is independent of the breathing delay, then
the actual amount of nucleated cells gets less, when the amount of
expandable melt is reduced (after a longer breathing delay). At a given
final part thickness of 4 mm, the molten core has to expand more,
compare Figure 7, with a reduced number of initially nucleated cells.
After a longer breathing delay, the higher expansion ratio of the foam
core results in a bigger average cell size distribution. After 2 and 5 s
of breathing delay, the expansion ratio is 2.8 and 3.69 with an average
cell size of 50 and 160 mm, respectively. The detailed morphological
properties like layer thickness and average cell size are summarized
in Table 4.
In Figure 7, the mechanical properties (flexural bending and
unnotched Charpy impact) of the PP foams as a function of the breathing delay are compared with that of the non-foamed reference.
The relative properties of the non-foamed reference are set to 100%.
The specific modulus of the structural PP foams at the overall density
reduction of 50% is always higher than that of the non-foamed PP
reference. Moreover, a clear correlation between the skin layer thickness
and the flexural modulus is given, as thicker skin layers result in an
increased modulus. At the breathing delay of 5 s, the relative flexural
modulus is nearly 150% of the non-foamed reference. The results for
the flexural strength of the structural PP foams show the same trend
as the modulus, whereas the relative values are not as high as for
the modulus.
The toughness of the non-reinforced structural PP foams is affected
tremendously by foaming. The relative values of the unnotched Charpy
impact toughness are reduced to the range of 10 to about 30% compared
to that of the compact non-foamed reference. Also here, the correlation
between the skin layers and the toughness properties is given, as thicker
compact skins result in a less pronounced loss in toughness. The Charpy
toughness is the integral value of the measured force during deformation and the displacement of the specimen. The analysis of the force
deflection curve of the integral structural foams reveals a dramatic loss
in the maximum deformation prior to fracture, resulting in heavily
reduced integral Charpy toughness value. The non-foamed reference

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Controlling Morphology of Structural Foams

1000 m

1000 m
2 sec

Layer thickness (m)

100%

500 m

4 sec

5 sec

348

486

638

3363

3029

2632

352

487

649

Tm = 200 C
2 sec

Tm = 200 C
4 sec

Tm = 200 C
5 sec

75%

50%

25%

0%

150
125

Relative specific flexural modulus

Relative specific flexural strength
Relative specific charpy impact

100
75
50
25
0
Compact

Breathing
Breathing
Breathing
delay 2 sec delay 4 sec delay 5 sec

LCB PP @200 C melt temperature

Figure 7. Morphology and layer thickness of structural foams as a function of the

processing parameters (breathing delay; (2, 4, and 5 s)) and corresponding mechanical
properties: left: morphology of structural PP foams at a melt temperature of 200 C as
a function of the breathing delay; middle: skin layer thickness at a melt temperature of
200 C as a function of the breathing delay; right: corresponding relative specific
mechanical properties of the PP foams as a function of the breathing delay.

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Table 4. Thickness of the layers and average cell size of the structural
PP foams as a function of the breathing delay prior to breathing and the
melt temperature, respectively.
Layer thickness of structural foams
Breathing
Melt
Trial delay (bar) temperature ( C)
T3.1
T3.2
T3.3

2
4
5

200
200
200

Upper
compact
skin (mm)

Foamed
core (mm)

Lower
compact
skin (mm)

Average cell
size (mm)

352
486
638

3363
3029
2632

348
487
649

51
50
168

sustains a much higher deformation before fracturing. The foam

morphology acts as a stress concentrator, increasing the brittleness of
the integral foams. Although the average cell size distribution of the
examined samples is in the range between 50 and 160 mm, which is
a rather big difference, the measured toughness cannot be correlated
to the foam morphology, but is dominated clearly by the thickness of
the compact skin layers. In this cell size range, the foam acts as a defect
in the part and no crack-tip blunting can be examined.

CONCLUSIONS

The different approaches to improve the cellular morphology and

resulting properties of integral PP foams by tailoring the processing
conditions presented in this study clearly highlight the potential of foam
injection molding when using suitable molds. In the absence of a gascounter pressure in the mold cavity eliminating the premature cell
nucleation and growth during melt injection, significant progress can
still be made when exploiting the high-pressure technology.
Elevated mold cavity surface temperatures can limit the degradation
of the surface finish. The stiffness of structural foams can be tailored
by the expansion ratio of the initial part thickness, whereas the moment
of inertia correlates to the cubic part thickness. Moreover, the final
morphology of structural PP foams can be varied over a huge bandwidth, affecting the mechanical properties like modulus, strength, and
toughness. The thicker the skin layers, the higher the examined
mechanical values. The observed loss in Charpy toughness compared
to the non-foamed reference is a result of the reduction in the

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329

maximum deformation. As the obtained foam structures are not in a

microcellular range (not <10 mm), the foam acts as a defect in the part
and as a stress concentrator, hence the toughness of those structural PP
foams is sacrificed severely.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The authors thank the Bavarian Research Foundation (Bayerische

Forschungsstiftung (BFS), Munich, Germany) for financial support
within the project Cellject200X.
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