Compaction/conveying, compression

As shown in Fig. 4.1, resin feedstocks have a considerable level of interparticle space that is occupied by air. This level of space and thus the bulk density of the feedstock depend on the temperature, pressure, pellet (or powder) shape, resin type, and the level and shape of the recycle material. For a specific resin feedstock, the bulk density Increases with both temperature and the applied pressure. Understanding the compaction behavior of a resin feedstock is essential for both screw design and numerical simulation of the solids-conveying and melting processes. Screw channels must be able to accommodate the change in the bulk density to mitigate the entrainment of air and the decomposition of resin at the root of the screw. Typically, screw channels are set by using an acceptable compression ratio and compression rate for the resin. These parameters will be discussed in Section 6.1. 

The original solids-conveying model developed by Darnel and Mol [7] assumed that the pressure (or stress) in the solid bed is isotropic. This assumption was made to simplify the mathematics and because of the lack of stress data for solid bed compacts. Previous research, however, showed that stresses in solid compacts are not isotropic [8]. Anisotropic stresses can be represented by the lateral stress ratio. It is defined as the ratio of the compressive stress in the secondary direction to the compressive stress in the primary direction, as shown in Fig. 4.7 and Eq. 4.1. 

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