Thermal conductivity, dependence chain orientation

Thermal conductivity is an important parameter used for material thermal calculations in the injection molding simulation. A variation in the thermal conductivity will alter the cooling rate and hence cause a variation in the temperature this in turn will cause the viscosity, pressure, and frozen layer to vary. Classical Fourier theory, which assumes thermal conductivity to be a constant scalar value depending only on temperature alone, is inadequate to describe the heat conduction in deformed molten polymer. Van den Brule (1989, 1990) and van den Brule and O Brien (1990) suggested that heat transport mechanisms along the backbone of a polymer chain are more efficient than those between neighboring chains. Hence, the orientation of polymer chain segments induced by flow leads to an anisotropic thermal conductivity. To describe anisotropic thermal conduction, one... 

Most properties are strongly influenced by chain orientation. Birefringence, thermal expansivity, thermal conductivity and the elastic modulus depend on the Hermans orientation function according to relatively simple formulae. However, the elastic modulus of ultra-oriented polymers depends more directly on the macroscopic and molecular draw ratio. The latter reflects the extension of the end-to-end vector and the axial chain continuity. 

As mentioned frequently the mechanical and optical response of molecules — and of their crystallites — is highly anisotropic. Depending on the property under consideration the carriers of the molecular anisotropy are the bond vectors (infrared dichroism), chain segments (optical and mechanical anisotropy), or the end-to-end vectors of chains (rubber elastic properties). For the representation of the ensuing macroscopic anisotropies one has to recognize, therefore, the molecular anisotropy and the orientation distribution of the anisotropic molecular units (Fig. 1.9.). Since these are essentially one-dimensional elements their distribution and orientation behavior can be treated as that of rods such a model had been used successfully to explain the optical anisotropy [78], and the anisotropies of thermal conductivity [79], thermal expansion or linear compressibility [80], and Young s modulus [59,... 

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