Viscoelastic flow effects in

high speed injection moulding

M.G.H.M. Baltussen
MT07.16

External internship report

July 2006

Supervising committee
prof. H.E.H. Meijer (Supervisor, TU/e)
prof. H. Yokoi (Supervisor, Tokyo University)
dr. M.A. Hulsen (Supervisor, TU/e)
dr. G.W.M. Peters (Supervisor, TU/e)
dr. S. Hasegawa (Supervisor, Tokyo University )
Tokyo University
Institute of Industrial Science
Yokoi Lab
Contents
1 Introduction 2

2 Viscoelastic Effects 3

3 Experimental setup 4
3.1 Experiments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

4 Non-dimensional problem analysis 10

4.1 Governing equations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
4.2 Scaling of variables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
4.3 Dimensionless analysis of slit flow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

5 Results 15
5.1 Strain hardening results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
5.2 Flow front instability results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

6 Elongational Viscosity 19

7 Conclusion 21

1
1 Introduction
The demand for small and cheap polymer parts is growing rapidly. One of the possible production
techniques for these parts is injection moulding. It can be used to produce complex shaped
products with micro scale dimensions in high volumes and short cycles. Injection moulding is a
cyclic process where polymer is heated above its melting point and injected into a mould with
a temperature far below the melting point. Due to this temperature difference the polymer will
solidify. In order to compensate the volume loss during this solidification process, polymer is
added under high pressure. After fully solidifying, the mould is opened and the product is taken
out of the mould and the cycle is restarted.
When the parts are very long and thin, the melt can solidify prematurely, and the part has to be
rejected. Three processing parameters influence this effect, which are the mould temperature, the
resin temperature and the resin velocity. Of these three, the increase of both the mould and resin
temperatures leads to better moulding properties. They are also relatively easy to employ. In most
cases however, they will lead to high cycle times and possible material degradation, respectively.
Therefore the increase of the injection velocity is usually the only option, since it results in short
cycle times and products of good quality. Injection velocities of normal parts lie between 50 - 100
mm/s, whereas high-speed injection moulding reaches speeds up to 2000 mm/s.
Polymer melts have very distinct flow characteristics. The reason for these characteristics is the
chain-like structure of polymer molecules. If these molecules are close to each other, as in melts, the
movement of the molecules is constrained by the surrounding molecules. This leads to interesting
flow-effects, such as time dependent behaviour of stress, shear-thinning and normal stresses in
a shear flow. Materials which show these effects are called viscoelastic materials. Viscoelastic
materials behave like a liquid at low deformation rates and as an elastic solid at high deformation
rates.
Since the deformation rates are high during the injection phase of high speed injection mould-
ing, it is expected that viscoelastic flow effects will occur. The goal of this report will be the
observation of one of these effects during the high-speed injection moulding process.
This report is structured as follows: First viscoelastic effects and the experimental setup will
be discussed in Sections 2 and 3. Second the scaling of the governing equations will be treated in
Section 4. Third the experimental results will be given in Section 5, thereafter the cause of some
observed effects will be given in Section 6 and finally a conclusion will be given in Section 7.

2
2 Viscoelastic Effects
The main goal of this report is the observation of viscoelastic effects in high speed injection
moulding. Since these effects are often induced by the geometry of the channel, it is important to
choose a specific effect, since the amount of available geometries is limited.
In this case the extension thickening, or strain hardening effect will be studied. This effect is
observed in elongational flows, where fluid is stretched. This is the case near geometric singularities
and in extensional flows for instance. Extension thickening fluids show a rising viscosity with
increasing elongation rate. Some polymer melts, such as LDPE, show this behaviour, but certain
aqueous solutions of polymers show this behaviour in a more pronounced way. A non-dimensional
number which represents the ratio of the relaxation time and the typical timescale of the flow
is the Weissenberg number (Wi). So for higher Wi the viscosity becomes higher in elongational
flows. Jones et al. [8] studied the behaviour of aquatic polymer solutions and observed the effects
of strain hardening for several channel geometries. By varying the flow rate Q, Wi is controlled,
since the flow rate determines the flow timescale. For an increasing flow rate, the Weissenberg
number increases too. One of their resulting figures is Figure 1.

Figure 1: Stream lines of an 250ppm polyacramide solution of for three different flow rates Q,
Q = (4.4, 6.6, 8.8)cc/s. Image taken from Jones et al. [8].

From Figure 1, it can be seen that the higher the flow rate, hence the higher the Weissenberg
number, the less material flows through the lower slit. This can be explained by the fact that near
the entrance of the lower slit, a zone exists with high elongation rates. In this region the viscosity
rises, since the fluid is strain hardening. Therefore the pressure drop needed to keep fluid flowing
through the slit rises with increasing Wi. At a certain Wi this pressure drop is so large that most

3
 Property Basell LDPE Mitsui Sumitomo LDPE Mitsui Sumitomo HDPE
Mass Flow Rate [g/min] 1.6 23 12
Melt temperature [◦C] 108 105 134

of the fluid passes the object on the upper side, where the pressure drop is lower. If the fluid
would not have been strain hardening, the pressure drop in the lower slit would be higher than
the upper, but the ratio of them would stay the same for all Wi.
In order to observe effect similar to the effects observed by Jones et al. , two cavities have been
designed with geometrical features that are similar to the objects in the latter work. This means
that there is a zone with high elongation rates, the entrance to the small channel, and a zone with
low elongation rates, the entrance to the wide rib, see Figure 2. The only difference between the
two cavities, is the different primary channel height and the rib depth. For the first, cavity A, the
height is 4 mm and the depth is 4 mm. For the second, cavity B, the height is 2.5 mm and the
depth is 3.5 mm.
Another design aspect of this cavity is the fact that the flow should be two dimensional in
the largest part of the cavity. This is caused by the fact that 3D effects are difficult to measure
properly, since the flow-front should be visible from two directions. In order to obtain a two
dimensional flow field in near the region of interest, which is the region near the rib, the rib is
situated at 70 mm from the gate, which is more than the width of the cavity (50mm). In order to
reduce three dimensional effects near the sides of the cavity, the width of the cavity is taken much
wider than the height of the primary channel (12 times for cavity A, 20 times for cavity B). No
air vents are incorporated in the design, since the air can escape freely from the small channel.
Next to the cavity shape, the polymer choice is important, since not all polymers have the same
rheological behaviour e.g. not all polymers will show the same viscoelastic flow effects under the
same external conditions. In this case a polymer melt has to be chosen which shows a clear strain
hardening behaviour, and a polymer which does not show strain hardening for comparison. From
rheological measurements by [7], we know that LDPE melts show strain hardening. Therefore
LDPE has been chosen as the experimental material. More specifically the Basell 1800H melt and
the Mitsui Sumitomo 68 LDPE have been chosen. The first has been used, since it is about the
same as the BASF 1810H melt used by [7], of which rheological data is already available. Next
to a strain hardening a non-strain hardening is used. From [9], it is known that HDPE shows
little strain hardening and therefore it is chosen as reference material. In this report a Mitsui
Sumitomo/Prime Polymer 1300J HDPE resin is used. Basic material data of these three melts is
shown in table 2. From which it is observed that the viscosity of the Basell LDPE is much higher
than the viscosity of the other two melts, since the mass flow rate is five to ten times lower.

3 Experimental setup
In order to observe the filling of the cavity, a transparent insert of the mould has been used. This
makes it possible to look through the cavity, so that the flow front in the thickness direction can
be observed. The tracking of the flow front is done by the back-light illumination method, which
has been used many times by this group. This method consists of a mould which has two windows,
so that light can travel through the cavity. Two acrylic windows are fitted next to the cavity, and
form the side walls of the cavity. The cavity is lightened from the back side of the mould, so that
the flow-front is clearly visible. During the injection stage of the injection moulding process, a
high speed video camera records the process from the front side. This camera (NAC Memrecam
FX K4) is capable of recording up to 168.000 frames per second. As most high-speed cameras,
this camera reduces it’s image resolution in order to reach the very high frame-rates. For the
experiments frame-rates of 10.000 and 20.000 fps will be used, since the resolution and frame-rate
are sufficiently high to observe the process clearly at all injection conditions. The flow will only
be recorded in a small area of the total cavity, namely the area near the rib portion. See Figs. 3 -
4, for the experimental setup.

4
 The recordings show the most advanced tip of the flow front, irrespectable of it’s position with
respect to the window. So when the flow front is locally more advanced, this will be the apparent
front. Since the cavity is designed with two dimensional flow in mind this effect is believed to be
small.
A note has to be made to the fact that the acrylic windows have different mechanical and
thermal properties than a normal steel cavity, which could lead to phenomena which do not take
place in all-steel cavity, such as flashing of the melt and cooling related effects. The contact area
of the melt with the windows is relatively small however, when compared to the contact area with
the steel mould, and therefore only local effects near the window can be expected, which should
not alter the global flow too much.
The injection moulding machine, is a Nissei Plastics Co. Ltd. FN4000T, which has two injection
units, only one will be used however. This machine has a maximum injection rate of 1000 mm/s,
which corresponds to 806 cm3 /s.

3.1 Experiments
Injection moulding experiments will be conducted at the following injection speeds: 30,60,100,300,600
and 1000 mm/s. For cavity A either the Basell LDPE or the Mitsui Sumitomo LDPE will be in-
jected, for cavity B the Mitsui Sumitomo HDPE is available too.

5
 t1

70
115
4

1
t2 50

shape A ; t1=4, t2=7

shape B ; t1=2.5, t2=5
Figure 2: The shape of the cavity, which has been used in the experiments. The left view is the
same view as observed during experiments. A fangate is located at the top, the channel with
width t1 is the primary channel, the lower channel is the outflow channel.

6
Figure 3: The opened mould with the two acrylic windows to the side of the cavity.

7
Figure 4: The closed mould. Light travels through the acrylic windows.

8
Figure 5: The high speed camera (right) set up for the experiment, recording the filling process
from the same side as the left part of Figure 2.

9
4 Non-dimensional problem analysis
In order to get an idea about which physical processes are dominant at different injection rates, a
non-dimensional analysis is useful. Therefore a decision has to be made on what to incorporate into
the physical model of the real world. The behaviour of polymer melts depends on the movement of
the polymer chains comprising the melt. The movement of an individual chain does not influence
the total behaviour however. Hence the polymer can be treated as a continuum and the theory of
continuum mechanics can be applied.
This section is structured as follows: First the equations of motion will be introduced, thereafter
the resulting equations will be written in a non-dimensional form. Finally a scaling analysis will
be carried out for the flow of polymer between two parallel plates, a slit flow.

4.1 Governing equations

Now that it is known that a continuum approach is appropriate, the governing equations for this
problem have to be introduced. The governing equations consist of the conservation equations of
mass, momentum and energy and constitutive equations for the stress, internal energy and heat
flux. Since the injection moulding process is considered a immiscible process, only single compo-
nent versions of these governing equations will be used, and no entropy of mixing is incorporated.
No reactions take place and temperatures are considered low, so that radiation is not important.
Also body forces such as gravitational forces are assumed low. These assumptions result in the
following conservation equations:

 
∂ρ ~ ~ · ~u
+ ~u · ∇ρ = ρ∇ (1)
∂t
 
∂~u ~u =∇ ~ ·σ
ρ + ~u · ∇~ (2)
∂t
 
∂ ~ · ~q + σ : L
ρ = −∇ (3)
∂t
Where ρ is the density, t is the time, ~u is the velocity, σ is the fluid stress,  is the internal
energy of the fluid, ~q is the
heat flux and L = ∇~~ uT is the velocity gradient tensor. L Can be
1 T
replaced by D = 2 L + L , since the fluid stress is always symmetric. The energy equation
contains the internal energy on the left hand side, and the conduction of heat and the viscous
dissipation on the right hand side.
The constitutive equation for the fluid stress can have different forms, depending on the fluid
model. In this report a viscoelastic fluid model is used. First the fluid stress is split into two parts
σ = −pI + τ . Where p is the pressure, I is the unit tensor and τ is the extra fluid stress tensor, for
which a constitutive relation has to be defined. This constitutive relation relates the deformation
history to the extra stress.
The viscoelastic fluid model is the Oldroyd-B or Upper Convected Maxwell (UCM) model.
Although more accurate, and elaborate, models exist for polymer melts [11, 10], this model suffices
for the intended scaling analysis in this report, and is given by:
O
λ τ +τ = 2G(T )λD (4)

with
O ∂τ ~ − L · τ − τ · LT
τ = + ~u · ∇τ (5)
∂t
where G(T ) is the temperature dependent shear modulus, λ is the relaxation time of the liquid
O
and τ is the upper convected derivative. The relaxation time is not taken temperature dependent,
which is not correct from a physics standpoint.

10
 The constitutive equation Eq. 6 for the internal energy is based on [1]. The relation for the
heat flux Eq. 7 is taken as a the Fourier Law of heat diffusion, as was done by [12].

 
∂ ∂T ~
= ρcp + ~u · ∇T (6)
∂t ∂t
~
~q = −κ∇T (7)

Here cp is the heat capacity at constant pressure, and κ is the heat diffusion coefficient constant,
also called heat conduction constant.
So the fluid stress is modelled as a time and temperature dependent viscoelastic liquid. For
polymers the viscosity η is taken equal to G(T )λ.

4.2 Scaling of variables

Now the physics are modeled it is important that all the variables are scaled. The scaling of
the variables leads to the introduction of the so-called dimensionless groups. These groups show
the relative importance of two forces, energies or timescales for example. This directly shows
the benefits of this analysis. First of all it is easy to assess which terms are important in a
certain problem. It is now possible to set up an experiment in which only one, or few effects are
observable. This has the advantage that other effects cannot have an major influence on the results
and therefore effects can be studied individually, instead of all at once. Second, the modelling of
complex problems is simplified, since unimportant terms do not have to be modelled. This reduces
the complex problem to a less complex one, which is easier to solve in general.
In this case some assumptions will be made. The fluid is considered to be incompressible
∂
ρ = constant and to be at a stationary state = 0. In case that the fluid is very elastic, the
∂t
following non-dimensional variables are introduced:
1∗ ∗
∗
∇= ∇ ~u = U0 ~u p = Gp
t
∗ ∗ ∗ U0 ∗
τ = Gτ T = (Tmelt − Tmould ) T + T0 = ∆T T + T0 D= D
t
U0 ∗
L= L
t

where t stands for the typical length scale of the problem, U0 for the typical velocity, G for
the shear modulus depending on the temperature, Tmelt the temperature of the melt, Tmould the
temperature of the mould and T0 the constant ambient temperature. Using these variables in Eq.
(1)-(2) and omitting the stars, leads to:

~ · ~u = 0
∇ (8)
 
~ u + ∇p
Ma2 ~u · ∇~ ~ =∇ ~ ·τ (9)
 
~
Pe ~u · ∇T =∇~ 2 T + Br (τ : L) (10)
 
~ + L · τ − τ · LT + τ = 2W iD
Wi ~u · ∇τ (11)

Where the following dimensionless numbers appear:

The Mach number giving the ratio between the velocity and the shearwave velocity in the fluid:

U0
Ma = p (12)
G/ρ

11
The Péclet number giving the ratio between convective heat transport and conductive heat trans-
port:

ρcp U0 t
Pe = (13)
κ

The Brinkman number giving the ratio between viscous heat generation and conductive heat
transport. In case of a viscoelastic liquid the viscosity will be estimated, based on the temperature
and the shear rate:

ηU02
Br = (14)
κ∆T

The Weissenberg number giving the ratio between the convective stresses and the relaxation
stresses:

λU0
Wi = (15)
t
Now that the equations are scaled, the non-dimensional numbers have to be computed for a
cavity shape and moulding conditions, which will be done in the next subsection. The assumption
that the fluid is very elastic has to be verified during this analysis otherwise the scaling of the
variables is not correct.

4.3 Dimensionless analysis of slit flow

A practical application of the non-dimensional numbers is the analysis of a model problem. In
this case a slit flow geometry will be considered. It lies out of the scope of this report to do a full
scaling analysis of the fountain flow, see [3] and [5]. The dimensionless numbers will be calculated
for LDPE . The material data is given in table 1. The slit has a length L, width W and thickness
t and L > W  t. The main flow velocity will be in x-direction and called U0 . The velocity
components in the other two directions are considered much smaller in the largest part of the
cavity, since the thickness is much smaller than the length and width. The specific length scale is
the thickness, since the largest changes occur in this direction. The slit geometry is depicted in
Fig. 6. In a large part of the slit, the flow can be considered two dimensional. Since both W and
L are much larger than t, the thickness is the important length-scale and is set at 5 mm, which is
in the same order as the channel height in the experiments. The velocity and shear rate profiles of
a two dimensional Poisseuille flow are shown in Figure 7. This assumption is rather severe, since
the flow of a shearthinning in this geometry will be more plug like, due to the high shearrates at
the wall. Since cooling is also near the wall, the viscosity is also low near the wall, reducing the
severe shear thinning at the wall.

Figure 6: The slit shape, used for the scaling analysis.

The velocities are chosen such that they are of the same order of magnitude as in high speed
injection moulding. In order to calculate the appropriate velocities, the machine data from a Nissei
FN4000T injection moulding machine have been chosen. This machine has a maximum injection
speed of 1000 mm/s, which corresponds to 806 cm3 /s. From this data the true fluid velocity in the

12
 Material property LDPE @ 435K
ρ @ 293 K [kg/m3 ] 991
cp [J/kgK] 2.54 · 103
κ [W/mK] 8.07 · 10−2
λ [s] 5.875 · 101

Table 1: Material properties of LDPE.

t
PSfrag replacements

γ̇ velocity
Figure 7: The shear rate and velocity profiles for a fully developed Poisseuille flow.

slit can be calculated. An imaginary injection speed of 10000 mm/s has been added to indicate
the effects of even higher injection speeds.
The viscosity of polymer melt G(T )λ depends on the shearrate γ̇ and the temperature. There-
fore it is impossible to use one single value for this property in the scaling analysis. For each
specific case the shear rate is approximated, and used to find the appropriate viscosity, with the
help of figure 8.The viscosity of LDPE is only weakly dependent on the temperature, especially
at high shear rates, see [12]. Therefore the viscosity will be taken at the set up melt temperature,
which is not the real melt temperature. In this case the viscoelastic liquid is shear thinning.
Therefore the highest shear rate will give the lowest viscosity.
The same analysis will be carried out for a viscoelastic liquid.

injection rate [mm/s] ~ 0 [m/s]

U γ̇max [1/s] η [Pas] Br Pe Wi
10 3.2 · 10−2 3.8 · 101 2 · 103 4.3 · 10−2 1.3 · 103 3.8 · 102
100 3.2 · 10−1 3.7 · 102 3 · 102 6.5 · 10−1 1.3 · 104 3.8 · 103
1000 3.2 · 100 3.7 · 103 1 · 102 2.2 · 101 1.3 · 105 3.8 · 104
10000 3.2 · 101 3.7 · 104 2 · 101 4.3 · 102 1.3 · 106 3.8 · 105

Table 2: Non dimensional numbers for a LDPE melt flowing through a slit.

From these non-dimensional numbers the following can be concluded:

• The viscosity at the highest injection rate is 100 times smaller than the viscosity at the lowest
injection rate. This shows that shearthinning has a great influence on the flow behaviour.
• At high injection rates, more heat is generated by viscous dissipation, than can be conducted
to the walls. This will give rise to the heating up of the polymer melt, which leads to a lower
viscosity.

13
 Figure 8: Shear viscosity, taken from [12] p111.

• The transportation of heat is always convection dominated, since Pe is always much larger
than unity.

• The material behaves elastic, since Wi is much larger than unity for all injection rates. This
justifies the scaling of stress and pressure with the modulus G.

14
5 Results
In this section the experimental results will be shown. Two viscoelastic effects will be considered
as mentioned in section 2. First strain hardening effects will be treated and flow front instabilities
thereafter.

5.1 Strain hardening results

The effect of strain hardening on the filling behaviour is measured as follows. From the recorded
movies the time at which the rib is filled entirely is measured trib , as well as the time at which the
polymer melt enters the small channel tsm . See figure 9.

trib

tsm

PSfrag replacements

Figure 9: The filling time of the rib, trib and the entering time of the channel tsm .

The time difference ∆t = tsm − trib is calculated. From this difference two things can be seen:
• The sign of the time difference gives information about which event takes place first. If the
rib is filled before the small channel is filled, the sign is positive. Otherwise it is negative
• The absolute value of the time difference gives information on the time between the two
events. If the time difference is significant, either the rib or the channel is filled first,
therefore being an indicator of strain hardening.
This time difference is calculated for both cavity shapes and all injection speeds. For cavity
A, only Mitsui-Sumitomo LDPE and Basell LDPE are used. For cavity B Prime Polymer HDPE
is used in addition to these resins. The results are shown in Figs. 10 -11.
From the figures it is observed that only at low injection rates the small channel is filled
before the rib. The time difference is very small however, so no big strain hardening effects occur.
All three polymers behave the same, so strain hardening does not influence the filling behaviour
significantly. In general the rib is filled first and the channel is filled thereafter. This is probably
due to the fact that the melt is cooled quicker near cavity walls. This results in a lower viscosity,
which hinders the filling of the small channel at all injection rates. Only after filling the rib-portion,
the pressure is high enough to force melt into the small channel.

15
 Time difference vs. injection velocity for cavity A
0.01
Mitsui Sumitomo LDPE
0.008 Basell LDPE

0.006

0.004
Time difference ∆ t [s]

0.002

−0.002

−0.004

−0.006

−0.008

−0.01
0 200 400 600 800 1000
Injection rate [mm/s]

Figure 10: The time difference between filling the rib and entering the channel for cavity A
.

Time difference vs. injection velocity for cavity B

0.01
Mitsui Sumitomo HDPE
0.008 Mitsui Sumitomo LDPE
Basell LDPE
0.006

0.004
Time difference ∆ t [s]

0.002

−0.002

−0.004

−0.006

−0.008

−0.01
0 200 400 600 800 1000
Injection rate [mm/s]

Figure 11: The time difference between filling the rib and entering the channel for cavity B
.

5.2 Flow front instability results

The rotating motion of the flow front was observed in the channel leading to the rib-shaped cavity
for the Basell LDPE at all injection rates and for the other materials at high injection rates. The
rotating motion of the flow front resulted into two different types of filling behaviour, depending
on the direction of rotation. When the flow front rotated clockwise the rib-portion was filled
in the same way as it was filled when the fountain flow was stable, when the flow front rotated

16
counterclockwise, the flow front bent around the corner first. Only after touching the lower ribwall,
the left part of the rib was filled. The different filling can be seen in Figs. 12-13.

Figure 12: Flowpatterns of the filling of the rib-cavity when the flow front rotated clockwise when
entering the rib-portion for Mitsui Sumitomo LDPE injected at 30 mm/s.

Figure 13: Flowpatterns of the filling of the rib-cavity when the flow front rotated counterclockwise
when entering the rib-portion for Basell LDPE injected at 1000 mm/s.

In order to relate the rotation direction at the time of entering the rib-portion to the filling
behaviour of the rib, the rotation direction and the filling manner were determined. The rotation
direction can be: clockwise (CW), counterclockwise (CCW) or unknown (u). The filling behaviour
can be either normal Fig. 12, or abnormal Fig. 13. For all three materials and all seven injection
rates this results in the following table:
From this table the following conclusions can be drawn:
• Abnormal rib filling is observed for the Basell LDPE at all injection rates. For the other two
polymers it is observed for injection rates of 100 mm/s and upwards.
• The direction of rotation and the filling behaviour can be related fairly accurately for the
Basell LDPE at injection rates upto 100 mm/s.

17
Injection rate mm/s Basell LDPE
normal abnormal
CW CCW U CW CCW U
30 52.9 0 17.6 0 29.4 0
60 54.5 18.2 0 0 27.3 0
100 71.4 0 7.1 0 21.4 0
300 45.5 0 27.3 0 18.2 9.1
600 25 0 8.3 0 66.7 0
1000 38.5 0 0 0 30.8 30.8
Mitsui Sumitomo LDPE
normal abnormal
CW CCW U CW CCW U
30 0 0 100 0 0 0
60 44.4 0 55.6 0 0 0
100 77.8 0 0 11.1 0 11.1
300 42.9 0 0 0 28.6 28.6
600 30 0 40 0 20 10
1000 23.1 0 23.1 0 38.5 15.4
Prime Polymer HDPE
normal abnormal
CW CCW U CW CCW U
30 80 0 20 0 0 0
60 70 0 30 0 0 0
100 22.2 0 11.1 0 66.7 0
300 18.2 0 36.4 0 0 45.5
600 30 0 30 0 0 40
1000 26.9 3.8 26.9 7.7 15.4 19.2

18
For increasing injection rate it becomes more difficult to determine the rotational direction. This
is due to the fact that the flow front movement is larger during each captured movie-frame. This
results in a unclearer flow front at high injection rates. The Basell LDPE shows a non-smooth
flow front, at all injection rates. The flow front appears to be fractured, hence the name melt
fracture, which is a common effect in polymer extrusion [2], where it is observed regularly. This
effect has no influence on the global filling behaviour, it results in much easier determination of
the rotational direction, however.

6 Elongational Viscosity
A possible reason for the fact that the Mitsui Sumitomo LDPE and the Mitsui Sumitomo HDPE
only show abnormal filling behaviour at high injection rates is their relatively low viscosity with
respect to the Basell LDPE. This means that the former behave less elastic than the Basell LDPE.
Since the unstable motion of the flow front is believed to be a viscoelastic effect, it’s occurrence
can be characterized by the Weissenberg number (Wi), which is the ratio of the relaxation time
of the polymer to the characteristic deformation time. Polymers with a low viscosity have to be
injected at an higher speed in order to have the same Weissenberg number. From [4, 6], it is
known that the fountain flow only becomes unstable from a certain Wi upwards, which is known
as the critical Wi. Therefore the Mitsui Sumitomo LDPE and Mitsui Sumitomo HDPE could be
below this critical Wi for the low injection rates, while the Basell LDPE already has a higher Wi
than the critical Wi at these injection rates.
The first indication that the viscosities differ is the large difference in melt flow indexes, seen in
table 2, where a low mass flow index indicates a high viscosity. In order to make a more qualitative
comparison, the uniaxial viscosities of all melts are measured. The temperature of the melt was
set at 140 ◦C. The Mitsui Sumitomo HDPE had a very low viscosity at this temperature, which
made it impossible to test. By lowering the temperature, crystalisation effects become apparent,
which is not desirable. Therefore only the LDPE’s were tested. The resulting uniaxial viscosities
for strain rates of 0.5 and 1.0 1/s are shown in Figure 14. Measurements where performed by
W.M. Buysse.

Uniaxial extensional viscosity for two materials and elongation rates

6
10

x Basell LDPE ˙ = 0.5

o Basell LDPE ˙ = 1.0
Uniaxial extenisional viscosity [Pas]

 Mitsui Sumitomo LDPE ˙ = 0.5

10
5 . Mitsui Sumitomo LDPE ˙ = 1.0

4
10

3
10 −2 −1 0 1
10 10 10 10
time [s]

Figure 14: Uniaxial extensional viscosity for two materials and two extension rates.

From 14 it can be seen that both polymers are strain hardening, since the viscosity increases

19
significantly with an increased extension rate. For LDPE’s this is normal behaviour [9]. The Mitsui
Sumitomo LDPE has a much lower viscosity however, about ten times lower than the Basell LDPE.
Therefore the Weissenberg number will also be lower under the same flow conditions. In order to
compare experiments with both materials, the injection speed of the Mitsui Sumitomo LDPE has
to be about ten times higher, which at least agrees quantitatively with the fact that this polymer
only shows abnormal filling for higher injection rates than the Basell LDPE.

20
7 Conclusion
Viscoelastic flow effects in high-speed injection moulding were studied with a filling visualisation
technique. More in particular strain hardening and unstable motion of the fountain flow were
investigated. Two similarly rib shaped cavities were designed, where strain hardening effects as
observed by Jones et al. [8] were expected. One of three polymers, two LDPE’s and one HDPE,
was injected into this cavity at six different injection rates. The cavity is optically accessible
from one direction and the filling of the cavity was recorded by an high-speed camera. From the
video data filling patterns were drawn, filling times of parts of the cavity were recorded and the
behaviour of the flow front was identified. From this observation data it can be concluded that
strain hardening has no influence on the filling of the cavity. This is believed to be due to the fact
that the viscosity rises too much locally due to cooling.
The unstable motion of the flow front prior to entering the rib shaped section of the cavity
caused notable filling effects. The rib portion was either filled in a regular way, with touching the
opposing wall and filling the rib portion, or it was filled in a irregular way, when the flow front
bent around the corner and touched the opposing wall much closer to the rib end. These two filling
mechanisms where observed for all three polymers at injection rate from 100 mm/s and upward
and for the Basell LDPE also at the lower injection rates. Whether the cavity is filled regularly or
irregularly is related to the rotational direction of the flow front prior to entering the rib portion
in most cases. In general it is observed that if the rotation is clockwise, the rib is filled regularly,
if rotating counterclockwise the rib is filled irregularly.
The reason for the different behaviour of the Basell LDPE and the Mitsui LDPE and HDPE
is believed to be the fact that the viscosity of the later polymers is much lower than the viscosity
of the Basell LDPE. The Basell LDPE behaves more elastic than the other two polymers at
the same injection rate and therefore shows other behaviour. In other words; The Weissenberg
number for Basell LDPE is higher than the Weissenberg number for the other two polymers
with the same injection conditions. When the injection rate is increased, the melts behave more
elastic. Thus the Weissenberg number is increased with respect to the low injection velocities and
the Mitsui Sumitomo LDPE and HDPE show the same filling behaviour than the Basell LDPE
already showed at low injection rates. Extension rheometry confirmed that the viscosity of the
Mitsui Sumitomo LDPE is about a factor ten lower than the viscosity of the Basell LDPE. No
extensional rheometry could be conducted on the Mitsui Sumitomo HDPE, since it’s viscosity is
too low at the experimental conditions.
Finally it can be said that the unstable motion of the fountain flow has an effect on the filling
of a rib-shaped cavity. Since the unstable fountain flow is a viscoelastic instability, viscoelastic
effects can be observed during the filling phase of high-speed injection moulding, with the flow
front visualisation technique.

21
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