Analysis of Flow in Some Processing Operations

Design methods involving polymer melts are difficult because the flow behaviour of these materials is complex. In addition, flow properties of the melt are usually measured under well defined uniform conditions whereas unknown effects such as heating and cooling in processing equipment make service conditions less than ideal. However, sufficient experience has been gathered 

Example 5.2 In a plunger-type injection moulding machine the torpedo has a length of 40 mm, a diameter of 23 mm and is supported by three spiders. If, during moulding of polythene at ITO C, the plunger moves forward at a speed of 13 mm/s, estimate the pressure drop along the torpedo and the shear force on the spiders. The barrel diameter is 25 mm. 

Surface area of torpedo = nDL Viscous drag force = nDLx 

Example S3 The output of polythene from an extruder is 30 x 10 m /s. If the breaker plate in this extruder has 80 holes, each being 4 mm diameter and 12 mm long, estimate the pressure drop across the plate assuming the material temperature is 170°C at this point. The flow curves in Fig. 5.3 should be used. 

Example 5.4 Eight polypropylene mouldings, each weighing 10 g are to be moulded using the runner layout shown in Fig. 5.19. If the injection time is 2 seconds and the melt temperature is 210°C, calculate the pressure at each cavity if the injection pressure at the sprue is 80 MN/m. The density of the pwlypropylene is 909 kg/m3 and the volume of the sprue is 5000 mm. Assume that the flow is isothermal and ignore the pressure losses at comers. 

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