A. Garcia-Rejon

Modeling of Industrial Polymer Processes: Injection Molding and Blow Molding

In the last twenty years injection molding and blow molding have seen a rapid growth due to the development of new application areas in the automotive, sports and leisure, electronics, transportation and packaging industries. This success can be traced to the optimization of existing processes and to the development of new processing techniques employing novel concepts such as gas-assisted injection molding, co-injection, and 3D and sequential blow molding. The complexity of these new molding techniques calls for a much better understanding of the material behavior during the basic stages of the process and its relation to the properties and performance of the final part. These characteristics are directly dependent upon die and mold designs and on the operating conditions during extrusion, injection, inflation and cooling in the mold.In this paper we will demonstrate how the numerical simulation of the individual steps of the process can be used to optimize the process and product performance of industrial parts. In the case of injection molding, special interest will be devoted to the numerical prediction of the filling phase for both thin and thick parts. For blow molding the prediction of material behavior during clamping and inflation will be shown and related to final part thickness distribution, parison programming and preform design.

Recent progress in online ultrasonic process monitoring

On-line ultrasonic monitoring of polymer co-extrusion and gas-assisted injection molding are presented. During the co- extrusion of high density polyethylene and Santoprene ultrasonic sensors consisting of piezoelectric transducers and clad ultrasonic buffer rods are used to detect the interface between these two polymers and the stability of the extrusion. The same ultrasonic sensor also measures the surface temperature of the extruded polymer. The results indicate that temperature measurements using ultrasound have a faster response time than those obtained by conventional thermocouple. In gas-assisted injection molding the polymer and gas flow front positions are monitored simultaneously. This information may be used to control the plunger movement.