Polymer Flow Length Simulation During Injection

Mold Filling
M. BUCHMA", R. THERIAULT, and T. A. OSSWALD

Polymer Processing Research Group

Department of Mechanical Engineering
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Madison, Wisconsin 53706
The maximum flow length of a polymer for a given set of processing conditions is
important in injection molding to avoid incomplete mold filling. Experimental anal-
ysis, using various processing conditions, can generate the actual influence of
processing conditions on the maximum flow length. However, the experimental
determination of the flow length for all known industrial polymers would be time
consuming and expensive. A non-Newtonian, nonisothermal model of mold filling
was developed to evaluate the flow length without requiring large amounts of
computation time. The model implements the use of both a temperature and shear
rate-dependent viscosity as well as viscous heating. This paper presents the model
and its numerical implementation, followed by simulation results. The model is
compared with other simulation programs and experimental results using both a n
amorphous Styron 484-27 polystyrene and a semicrystalline 6401polyethylene in a
spiral mold geometry. Good agreement between the three is observed.

INTRODUCTION cavity filling; however, these techniques employ exten-

he capability of a polymer melt to flow in the in-
T jec tion molding process is a strong function of the
temperature and shear-rate dependent viscosity. The
viscous heating developed in the flow field cannot be
neglected because of the high Prandtl numbers asso-
ciated with polymer melts coupled with the steep ve-
locity gradients. If the cavity width to thickness ratio is
greater than or equal to eight, the effects of the side
walls can be considered negligible. Thus the velocity
and the temperature distribution is transient and two-
dimensional in space, with the velocity having compo-
nents in both the flow and transverse directions.
In a short-shot condition, the polymer flow will stop
when the solidified layers at the upper and lower cav-
ity walls converge, restricting further flow of polymer
through the cavity. The maximum distance the mate-
rial is capable of flowing from the gate under a speci-
fied set of processing conditions is generally referred
to a s the flow length. The flow length, determined
experimentally using a spiral cavity, is a common
measure used to compare processing conditions.
However, these measurements are costly and time
consuming.
The development of a simulation that can accu-
rately represent the flow length of polymer melts dur-
ing the injection molding process is a valuable tool to
understand melt behavior during cavity filling. Vari-
ous numeric techniques have been used to simulate
sive amounts of user interaction as well as computa-
tional time. Within this research project, a model to
predict flow lengths for simple geometries using nu-
merical techniques was developed. This paper pre-
sents the model and its numerical implementation,
followed by simulation results. The model is compared
with other simulation programs and experimental re-
sults using both a n amorphous (Dow)Styron 484-27
polystyrene and a semicrystalline 6401 polyethylene.
Good agreement between the three is observed.
THEORETICAL BACEGROUND
The main simplification in the development of the
model for the cavity filling is the transition from a
two-dimensional to a one-dimensional process. The
shape of the solidified layers during cavity filling as
shown in Fig. 1 has been predicted by Janeschitz-
Kriegl (1). The location where the layers will first
touch, hence the flow length, has been predicted by
Wijngaarden and Dijksman (2). The boundaries of the
solidified layers, which are almost parallel at the point
of contact, will also lead to velocities that are nearly
parallel to the cavity axis. A schematic of this behavior
is shown in Fig. 2. This simplified model is used in the
derivation of the governing equations for the solidifi-
cation process during the injection mold filling pro-
cess. An order of magnitude analysis shows that the
viscous effects have more influence than the inertia

POLYMER ENGINEERING AND SCIENCE, MARCH 1997, VOl. 37, NO. 3 e67
 M. Buchmann, R. Theriault, and T. A. Osswald

in which K,, K,, and K3 are material-dependent con-

stants and aT is a temperature-dependent shift factor.
The selection of the shift factor if often found to be
dependent degree of crystallinity of thermoplastic
polymers. For a semicrystalline thermoplastic at tem-
peratures of a t least 100 K above the glass transition
temparture, Tg, a n Arrhenius equation for the shift
factor is used and can be written in the form
Fig. 1 . The rnoldBlling process.

where E, is the activation energy, To is the reference

temperature, and R is the gas constant. However, for
amorphous thermoplastics in which processing tem-
peratures are closer to Tg,a WLF equation for the shift
factor is used and is written in the form
Fig. 2. The simplified mold fdling process. 8.86(K4 - K5) 8 . 8 6 ( T - K5)
-
logaT = 101.6 + K4 - K5 101.6 + T - K5 (51

effects during flow. Typical values when injection
molding thermoplastics lead to Reynolds numbers be-
tween and Hence it is possible to neglect the
inertia effects in the equation of motion as shown in
Eq 1 as (3)
where p is the pressure, q is the temperature and
shear rate-dependent viscosity and v is the velocity.
The two boundary conditions that apply to this pro-
cess are the no-slip condition a t the wall and symme-
try with respect to the centerline.
A model that is capable of representing the shear
rate dependence of the viscosity of polymers is the
Bird-Carreau model, written a s
v - 710 - [ l
~- + lAj12]”-”2
710 - 71..
where v0 is the zero shear rate viscosity, qz is the
infinite shear rate viscosity, A is the time constant,
and n is the power law index. Neglecting the infinite
shear rate viscosity, Eq 2 can be written in a n alter-
nate form a s
(3)
where K4 and K , are material-dependent constants.
The Carreau-WLF and the Carreau-Arrhenius models
take into account the shift of the transition point be-
tween Newtonian behavior and power law behavior at
a specific temperature of the polymer melt ( 3 ) .Table 1
presents the material constants used in the above
models which can be readily found in material data
banks (4).
Again, using the nomenclature used in E g . 2, the
equation of energy which contains a term for the vis-
cous dissipation reduces to (5)
with
(7)
The two boundary conditions applied to solving the
model are a constant temperature a t the cavity and
symmetry with respect to the centerline.
The variation of the heat capacity is minimal for
most amorphous polymers and shows only a slight
drop when the temperature falls below Tg. However,
semicrystalline polymers have the same drop a t the
melting temperature, but the dominant effect at this
point is the heat of fusion. A heat capacity vs. temper-

Table 1. Constants for Carreau-WLF (Amorphous) and Carreau-Arrhenius (Semicrystalline)Models for Various Thermoplastics.

K1 K4 K5 To €0
Polymer (Pa-s) K* (4 K3 (“C) (“C) (“C) (J/mol)
Polystyrene 1777 0.0264 0.73 200 123 - -
High-density polyethylene 24,198 1.38 0.60 - - 200 22,272
Low-density polyethylene 317 0.01 5 0.61 - - 189 43,694
Polypropylene 1386 0.091 0.68 - - 220 427,198
Polyamide 66 44 0.00059 0.40 - - 300 123,058
Polycarbonate 305 0.00046 0.48 320 153 - -
Polyvinyl chloride 1786 0.054 0.73 185 88 - -

668 POLYMER ENGINEERINGAND SCIENCE, MARCH 1997, Vol. 37, No. 3

 Polymer Flow Length Simulation During Injection Mold Filling
ature plot for these materials shows this effect in the
form of a peak at the melting temperature. The heat of
fusion is equal to the area between the curve and an
imaginary line that connects the heat capacity above
the melting range with the heat capacity below the
melting range. Polymers do not have a specific melting
point, but rather a temperature range in which the
melting occurs. This temperature range results in a
finite heat capacity at the melting point. This is differ-
ent from other materials such as water, where a defi-
nite melting point results in a n infinite heat capacity.
A model that approximates the effect of heat capacity
on the region of phase transition is shown in Eq 4 as:
in which T, is the melting point, T,, the lower and T,,
upper temperature limits of the melting range. The
heat capacity has three discrete values: the heat ca-
pacity of the solid of the crystal cp,cand of the melt
cp,,,. The heat capacity of amorphous polymers is rep-
resented by simply using A equal to zero.
NUMERICAL IMPLEMENTATION
Since the governing equations for the above model
cannot be solved analytically, a finite difference
scheme is used to evaluate them. After discretizing the
equations, it is necessary to combine them in a system
where they can be solved successively. The basic idea
is to solve all equations for every time step and use
these values for the calculations of the subsequent
time step. The following section will explain this sys-
tem by discussing the calculations that occur at each
time step.
Initial calculations, like the determination of the
time step size and the looping of the time steps, are
done in the main program. This program also keeps
track of the actual injection pressure, the actual flow
rate, and the flow length as a function of time.
Every time loop starts with the calculation of the
new temperatures. For these calculations the viscous
heating and the heat capacity are needed. The implicit
part of the Crank-Nicolson approximation, used in
solving the equation of energy, makes it necessary to
calculate all new temperatures simultaneously using
a tridiagonal matrix solver. The actual heat capacity
for every node is calculated iteratively. The calculated
temperatures are returned to the main program,
which calculates the new velocities.
The first step in the calculation of the velocities is to
compute the viscosity of the melt. Once the viscosity at
every node is known, the new velocities are computed.
To compute the volumetric flow rates, the velocity pro-
files are integrated. It may be necessary, when in the
constant flow rate mode, to iterate for a pressure gra-
dient that results in the required flow rate. After per-
forming the iterations, the new velocities, the pressure
gradient, and the volumetric flow rate are returned to
the main program. These values are used by the main
program for the calculation of the flow length and the
POLYMER ENGINEERING AND SCIENCE, MARCH 1997, Vol. 37, No. 3
injection pressure. The flow length is calculated as the
time integral of the volumetric flow rate. It is now
possible to calculate the gate pressure for a given
pressure gradient in the constant flow rate mode, or
the pressure gradient for a given injection pressure in
the constant pressure mode. The program runs in a
constant flow rate mode until the injection pressure
reaches its given maximum; then the program will
switch to a constant pressure mode. This mode keeps
the injection pressure at its maximum value and de-
termines the resulting variable flow rate. After these
calculations are performed, the next time step will
begin again by calculating the new temperatures. The
program will be terminated when a maximum time is
reached or when the flow rate has dropped below 1%
of the initial flow rate.
The accuracy of the results is mainly influenced by
the size of the time step and by the node spacing. A
smaller time step and smaller node spacing will gen-
erally increase the accuracy. It is, on the other hand,
important to keep the computation time to a minimum
using as large a time step as possible. The program
does not execute explicit discretizations, and thus the
time step size is not limited by stability consider-
ations. The time step is determined only by the re-
quired accuracy. In this program a Fourier number
type equation is used to relate the time step to the
kinematic viscosity and node spacing.
PLAUSIBILITY TESTS
The velocity and temperature profiles at different
times during a typical injection molding process with
polystyrene are shown in Figs. 3 and 4,respectively.
The resulting temperature profile, Fig. 4 shows the two
peaks that occur in the high shear region as a result of
the viscous heating.
A n understanding of the changes in the gate pres-
sure and flow rate over time is important for evaluat-
ing the injection molding process. The gate pressure
vs. time as obtained by experiments and simulation is
shown in Fg. 5. The pressure response variation be-
tween the experimental and simulated values results
from the pressure losses within the screw barrel dur-
1=0.001 sec
o 60.4sec
A t=O.B S8C
"
0.0 0.5 1.o 1.5 2.0
Thickness [mm]
Fig. 3. Velocity profies of Styron 484-27polystyrene at d$-.
ferent times during injection mold faing.
669
 M. Buchrnann, R. Therlault, and T.A. Osswald

600 I I
X Experimental
500
- 400 - -
-0-
-Model
2-D Simulation
X

/
Y

k0.001 sec s

u
0 1=0.4sec p 300 -
A t=0.8sec 3
i
i
z 200 -

-
100

0 l , 1 , 1 1 1 1 1 1

50
0.0 0.5 1.o 1.5 2.0
Thickness [mm]
FYg. 4 . Temperature profles of Styron 484-27 polystyrene at

1
dlfferent times during injection rnoldfnling.

Ax
600 I 1
I
X< Experimental
500
-+- 2-D Simulation

p5
Y 400 -Q- Mode'

300
1

0 1 2 3 4 5
Time [sec] 0 10 20 30 40 50 60
Gate Pressure [MPa]
Fig. 5. Modeled and experimental pressure versus time plots
of Styron 484-2 7 polystyrene. Fig. 7 . Flow length versus t h e of Styron 484-27polystyrene
(Q= 1 1 . 1 0 cm3/sj.
ing experimental cavity filling. The most important
information retrieved from these curves is the moment of flow length with increasing flow rates is seen. The
a t which the machine switches from the constant flow flow rate dependence of flow length is shown in Fig. 8,
rate mode to a constant pressure mode. A linear in- using a constant gate pressure. The simulation and
crease indicates a constant flow resistance during experfmental results show a strong flow rate influence
cavity filling. That means that the increasing resis- on the flow length in the low flow rate region, but the
tance due to converging solidified layers a t the upper experimental results converge to a maximum flow
and lower cavity walls is balanced by the viscous heat- length limit for high flow rates. The general shape of
ing and shear thinning effects. the two curves in Fig. 8 is similar and cross a t a flow
rate of 11 cm3/s for this particular case. This behavior
COMPARISON WITH EXPERIMENTS
The simulation was tested by plotting the resulting 200 I
flow lengths vs. a range of processing conditions, e.g.,
flow length vs. injection temperature. increased flow -
,150
rates lead to greater viscous heating effects as the E
material is pushed through the sprue and gate into Y
E
the mold cavity. The flow lengths of the Dow Styron r,
FlOO -
484-27 polystyrene vs. the gate pressure at various a,
J
temperatures and different flow rates are shown in
X Experimental
Figs. 6 and 7 at a constant mold temperature of 55°C. E
50 -
-0- Model
For comparison, the resulting flow lengths computed
with a two-dimensional simulation model (6)are also
plotted in these Figures. The discrepancy between the 01
t I I

model and the experimental results increased with 0 5 10 15

slower flow rates and decreased with faster flow rates. Flow Rate [cm3/secl
When comparing the flow length vs. gate pressures Fig. 8. Flow length versusflow rate of Styron 484-27polysty-
in Figs. 6 and 7 , a characteristic decrease in variance rene.

670 POLYMER ENGINEERING AND SCIENCE, MARCH 7997, Vol. 37, No. 3
 Polymer Flow Length Simulation During Injection Mold Filling

is explained by the absence of convective terms in our but this discrepancy was fairly small in the range of
model. These convective terms have a stabilizing effect normal operating conditions.
on the temperature profile because material is always
entering the control volume at a constant injection ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
temperature. Research material was donated by Dow Chemical
Dropping the convective terms leads to faster cool- U.S.A. Dr. Erwin Baur of M-Base GmbH is acknowl-
ing for low flow rates since the heat that is conducted edged for his valuable input.
into the walls is not replaced with heat from the hotter
injected melt. The faster cooling time will lead to a NOMENCLATURE
shorter flow length. A reverse effect appears at higher
flow rates. The material that is inserted at the injec-
-
cp = Specific heat [kJ/(kg "C)1.
cp,c = Specific heat of the crystalline structure
tion temperature is cooler than the actual material at
this point, which was heated by viscous dissipation.
-
[kJ/(kg "C)].
cP,, = Specific heat of the melt [kJ/(kg T ) 1 .
These higher temperatures will lead to longer flow c,,~ = Specific heat of the solid [kJ/(kg "C)1.
lengths for high flow rates.
The simulation predicts the influence of processing
k = Thermal conductivity IW/(m "CII. -
K , = Carreau-WLF constant.
conditions on the injection molding process quite ac- K, = Carreau-WLF constant.
curately. The absolute values of the results for the K3 = Carreau-WLF constant.
different methods of analysis show some discrepancy, K4 = Carreau-WLF constant.
but these errors are small in the range of normal K5 = Carreau-WLF constant.
processing conditions. p = Pressure [Pal.
cjvisc = Viscous heat dissipation rate [Wl.
CONCLUSIONS
T = Temperature ["C].
The injection cavity filling model is simple, and it T,, = Upper temperature limit I"C1.
accurately models the process using minimal compu- T,, = Lower temperature limit I"C1.
tation times. This model can be used to calculate the t = Time [sec].
flow length of a polymer for a set of given processing u = Velocity [m/sec].
conditions. The main simplification used for this x = Coordinate direction.
model was the transition from a n actual three-dimen- y = Coordinate direction.
sional, transient process to a one-dimensional, tran- aT = Temperature shift factor.
sient model. Important factors of injection molding g = Viscosity [Pa secl.
polymers, such as the temperature and shear rate- y = Strain rate [l/secl.
dependent viscosity and viscous heating, were consid- A = Heat of fusion [kJ/kgl.
ered. The governing equations for this model were p = Density[kg/m31,
discretized by using the finite difference method. It
was found that the finite difference derived solutions REFERENCES
were stable. This stability led to a time step size, based 1. H. Janeschitz-Kriegl, Rheol. Acta, 16, 327 (1977).
only on the required accuracy, s o that the computa- 2. H. van Wijngaarden and J. F. Dijksman, J. Non-Newt.
tion time could be decreased by increasing the time FluidMech. 11. 175 (1982).
step size without causing any stability problems. 3. T.A. Osswald and G. Menges, Materials Science of Poly-
mersfor Engineers, Hanser Verlag, Munich (1996).
Results from this program were compared with ex- 4. CAMPUSTM,Computer software, CWFG, Frankfurt am
perimental data. The influence of the processing con- Main, Germany ( 1991).
ditions on the obtained flow length was predicted 5. B. R. Bird, W. E. Stewart, and E. N. Lightfoot. Transport
properly by this model. The maximum injection pres- Phenomena, New York, Wiley (1958).
6. C-MOLD",Computer software, Version 3.1, AC Technol-
sure, for example, strongly influenced the flow length. ogy, Ithaca, N.Y. (1993).
Some discrepancy was seen when comparing the ab-
solute values of the model with experimental results, Revised December 1996

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