Numerical and experimental investigations on polymer melt flow phenomenon in a vario‐thermal mold cavity

Abstract

Mold temperature is one of the key factors affecting the morphology and quality of plastic parts. This article explores the melt flow phenomena in a vario-thermal mold cavity. A coupled numerical method, considering the conjugate heat transfer between the mold and melt, is developed for the melt flow simulation. Mold temperature variations and melt flow phenomena for short shot injection in an electrical heated mold cavity are numerically studied and verified by experiments. The results indicate that the melt flow length and cavity filling ratio increase significantly with the elongation of the preheating time before injection. Melt filling ratio increased nearly linearly with the increasing of electric heating time. The smaller the injection pressure is, the bigger the relative filling ratio increment is. Therefore, polymer melt can flow much longer or the mold cavity can be filled up with a smaller injection pressure when the cavity is preheated.