Single screw extrusion control: A comprehensive review and directions for improvements

Abstract

Polymer extrusion is usually a complex process, particularly due to the coupled nature of process parameters, and hence highly prone to fluctuations. Although a number of different approaches have been attempted in research/industry over the last few decades for extrusion control, it is still experiencing some problems in achieving consistent product quality. Presently, most of the polymer processing extruders are equipped with PID controllers mainly for the control of the screw speed and barrel temperatures in their set limits. It seems that only both of these controllers are commonly used as the major aids of process control to achieve the required melt quality. Although, the quality of the melt output (i.e., a thermally homogeneous melt output which is constant in quantity and quality over the time) is the key variable in polymer extrusion, only a few control techniques are available which make control decisions by observing the actual melt flow quality. Therefore, the development of new control strategies which consider the actual melt quality, perhaps incorporating industrially popular nonlinear techniques such as artificial intelligence, should be highly valuable. In this work, a critical evaluation is made on the state-of-the-art of the previous control approaches in polymer extrusion in industry and research while identifying their limitations. Then, some of the possible directions for future research and also to develop an advanced process control strategy are presented by eliminating a few of the existing limitations.

Predicting extrusion process parameters in Nigeria cable manufacturing industry using artificial neural network

“…Other properties include the degree at which the polymer compositions are well mixed and the rheological properties of the polymer [ 8 ]. These process parameters are very prone to fluctuations, therefore cause issues in cable manufacturing industries [ 9 ]. Some of these issues include the production of poor quality cables, an increase in the manufacturing cost and time and as well as the waste of materials in manufacturing industries [ 10 ].…”

“…Over the years, many methods have been developed to optimize the extrusion process in the industry. These techniques are developed to ensure that the production of high-quality extrusion output is achieved while reducing manufacturing cost, downtime, waste of material, energy, labor, and increasing economic benefits [ 9 , 13 ]. Some researchers investigated how the thermoplastic extrusion process can be improved in the industry.…”

Application of Parametric Modeling Technology in Single Screw Extruder

“…Screw is the heart of extruder and the key component of extruder. Its performance determines the productivity, plasticizing quality, dispersion of filler, melting temperature and power consumption of an extruder [4][5][6].…”

Improving the Consistency of Injection Molding Products by Intelligent Temperature Compensation Control

“…In most of the existing injection molding processes, the temperature is usually controlled by a proportional integral differential (PID) algorithm [5]. The PID algorithm has been widely applied in temperature control [6,7].…”