Inflation molding

The price of cellulose ester flake has generally increased with inflation and as of mid-1987 was estimated at ca 3.64— 4.71/kg for cellulose diacetate molding resin and from ca 4.16— 4.71/kg for the mixed esters molding resins depending on purity and the number of propionyl or butyryl esters (4). 

Molding, blow Method of forming plastic articles by inflating masses of plastic material with compressed gas. 

They are then forced through a narrow die to form a hollow tube called a parison. A chilled mold is then clamped around the parison and inflated from the inside by air. The air pressure presses the parison against the mold, and it hardens in the shape of the mold. The mold then opens and ejects the HDPE bottle. The bottle is then trimmed and conveyed to the milk filling station. The waste plastic is ground for reuse. GHG emissions associated with the embodied energy of the packaging machinery may be calculated but typically fall near the 1% cutoff line and can be excluded (Cashman et ah, 2009). 

The extrusion blow molding cycle is illustrated in Fig. 14.2. The extrusion component of the cycle is normally continuous. As soon as one length of parison has been captured by the mold, another length starts to form. To allow room for a new length of parison to emerge from the die, the mold moves aside as soon it has captured a parison and the knife has severed it. The mold is rapidly translated to a remote blowing station where inflation takes place. After the product is ejected, the open mold moves back under the die where it surrounds and captures another length of parison. 

We can generally extrude a parison much faster than we can inflate, cool, and eject the product. When this is the case, we employ more than one mold. If we are using two molds, they shuttle back and forth alternately between their individual blowing stations and the parison capture... 

When a parison or preform is inflated, it displaces the air around it within the mold. If no provision is made to vent the mold, compression of the air around the parison or preform can raise its temperature to such an extent that it can scorch the surface of the product. To avoid this problem, we equip blow molds with vents. These can consist of slit vents at the parting line between mold halves, porous plugs of sintered metal, or small holes drilled into the cavity walls. 

Vacuum forming has limitations due to the non-uniform wall thicknesses of its products. As the sheet is drawn into the mold, its thickness decreases, especially in the corners. For this reason, just as in blow molding, we design vacuum formed products to have rounded corners. If the depth of the cavity is excessive, walls can become locally so thin that they are unacceptably weak. One strategy that we use to alleviate this problem is to pump air into the cavity after the sheet has been clamped. This inflates the sheet, pushing it upwards and expanding its area approximately uniformly. When we subsequently apply a vacuum the expanded sheet is drawn back down into the mold. The finished product has a more uniform wall thickness than if we had applied the vacuum directly. 

Blow-molding processes consists of five main operations plastication of the resin, formation of the parison, inflation of the parison, solidification of the part, and removal of the part from the tooling. The best process economics will occur with a part optimized for weight and a minimum cycle time. In order to have a minimum cycle time, the cooling operation must be the rate-limiting step. For the case study... 

The calendering process and its conditions are developed or modified according to the requirements of subsequent operations and the purpose for which the sheet is used. Thus for sheets which are to be open cured, such as in chemical plant lining and custom built items such as inflatables and ebonite pipes, roll coverings for paper and steel mills, the calendering needs to be more exact than the sheets which are used for blank preparation for molding of... 

Ceramic materials, bonded by a mineral binder system which cures at ambient temperature, have been formulated to be sprayed on the outside of an air-inflated form or mold. The combination of chemically-bonded ceramics and pneumatic technologies heralds a dramatic breakthrough in construction cost, efficiency, strength and design flexibility. 

Extrusion blow molding. In extrusion blow molding, a parison or tubular profile is extruded and inflated into a cavity with a specified geometry. The blown article is held inside the cavity until it is sufficiently cool. Figure 3.56 [25] presents a schematic of the... 

Heat Transfer in Blow Molding Estimate the cooling time of a 15 cm long, 4 cm in O.D., and 0.3 cm thick HDPE parison at 200°C, which is inflated onto a 10-cm-diameter and 15-cm-long cylindrical bottle mold at 15°C by 5°C cold air. Solve the heat-transfer problem involved. Use the p, k, and Cp data given in Appendix A. Assume that the inner surface of the bottle is at 15°C. 

Fig. 14.15 Schematic representation of the blow molding process, (a) The extruder head with the blowing pin and open mold (b) the extrusion of the parison (c) the mold closed with the parison pinched in the bottom and sealed at the top (d) the inflated parison forming a bottle.

In the injection blow molding process, the parison is formed by injection molding of the preshaped parison onto a steel rod, as shown in Fig. 14.18. The rod with the molded thread already completed is moved to the blowing station, where the article is inflated free of scrap. The parison thickness distribution is determined in the injection mold without the need of further control. Some axial orientation is introduced during injection, resulting in an article with partial biaxial orientation. 

Fig. 14.26 Diameter (SD, thickness (S7), and weight (Sw) swell of a parison extrudate from a commercial blow-molding machine equipped with CCD camera equipment and parison pinch-off mold based on the design of Shepak and Beyer (69). (a) A chain extended multibranched polyamide-6 resin (b) the former with 12% glass fiber of 10 pm diameter 60 1 L/D and (c) polyolefin modified polyamide-6 with some carbon black. [Reprinted by permission from A. H. Wagner and D. Kalyon, Parison Formation and Inflation Behavior pf Polyamide-6 During Extrusion Blow Molding, Polym. Eng. Sci., 36, 1897-1906 (1996).]...

Parison inflation models use a Lagrangian framework with most of them employing the thin-shell formulation and various solidlike or liquid constitutive equations, generally assuming no-slip upon the parison contacting the mold. The first attempts to simulate polymeric parison inflation were made by Denson (83), who analyzed the implications of elongational flow in various fabrication methods, as discussed in the following example. 

However, since extentional viscous flow behavior is expected to occur only below a certain critical strain rate given by s — (22nmx-j) and the blow-molding inflation rates are high, the preceding approximation may only hold at high temperatures, where the maximum relation time is small. 

Schmidt et al. (102) carried out a detailed experimental study of PET blow molding with a well-instrumented machine and compared the results with theoretical predictions using FEM and an Oldroyd B constitutive equation. They measured and calculated internal gas pressure, coupled it with the thermomechanical inflation and performed experiments and computations with free parison inflation. 

A. H. Wagner and D. Kalyon, Parison Formation and Inflation Behavior of Polyamide-6 during Extrusion Blow Molding, AIChE J., 36, 1897-1906 (1996). 

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