2–17

Control of the uniformity of direct electrical heating for Rotational

Moulding

Wajid Ali Khan1, Jim Methven1

1
Manufacturing and Management Group, School of Mechanical Aerospace and Civil Engineering,
The University of Manchester, Sackville Street, Manchester M60 1QD, United Kingdom

Abstract: This work uses FE Analysis supported by experiment 2 The CHARM Process
to establish the uniformity of mould heating in rotational
moulding by the use of electrical heating elements placed in
direct contact with the mould surface. This study is part of a The CHARM process has been shown to reduce the
larger project run by the Manufacturing and Management Group Specific Energy Consumption (SEC) [7] of rotational
in The University of Manchester known as CHARM (Contact moulding from more than 6 KWh/kg to less than
Heating Applied to Rotational Moulding), and which is supported 3 kWh/kg [8].
by the DTI and Industry (DTI Reference J3530B with Haywood
At the same time it changes the process from one of
Rotomoulding, Rochdale and Tecni-Form, Stone).
low capital, low skill and high running cost to one of
Keywords: Rotational Moulding, Direct Electrical Heating,
higher capital, higher skill and lower running costs.
Cyclic Heating, Slip rings, Heat Distribution The process is based on direct electrical heating via
slip-rings [9].
Figure 1 shows a picture of the lab scale CHARM
machine with the mould clamped on one of the rotating
1 Introduction
frames.
The mould (Figure 2) was CNC machined from solid
Rotational moulding (Rotomoulding) is a well
aluminium by Finecut Graphics Designs, Poole. A
established process for manufacture of large hollow
closer view of one of the slip rings is shown in Figure 3
parts from thermoplastics. A mould, made as a split
shell, from cast aluminium or, more commonly
nowadays, CNC machined aluminium is charged with
thermoplastics powder and mounted on a mould carrier
which is located at the extremity of the rotomoulding
machine arm. The arm rotates about its long axis and
the mould, in turn, rotates about its own (orthogonal)
axis. The machine arm is moved into a gas-fired forced
air oven and the temperature of the recirculating air
inside the oven is controlled to typically around 300oC.
At this temperature and under the biaxial rotation of the
mould, the powder coats the inner surface of the mould
and consolidates to a thin (typically less than 10mm
thick) shell. At this point the arm is moved to a cooling
station and the mould is allowed to cool before the part
is removed. The process is relatively slow as a result of
the poor heat transfer between the mould and the Fig. 1. Lab scale CHARM machine
ambient air during both the heating and cooling stages
and, typically, each of these operations can take around
20 minutes [1-6].
88 W. Ali Khan, J. Methven
The heaters are 200W,
12mm diameter cartridge
devices (RS 376-1843)
which are inserted into
aluminium blocks. The
blocks are attached by
means of “strangle bands”
(RS 171-938)
Fig. 2. Mould (300 mm by 300 mm by 80 mm deep) with Heaters
attached
3 Analysis
Since the mould heaters are placed discretely on the
mould surface (rather than conformal to it) the issue of
control now becomes how to program a number of
heaters to provide a uniform temperature on the mould
surface.
This was modelled by mapping the mould wall to a
simple square plate, measuring 300 mm on the side and
10 mm thick. (This is the same thickness as the mould).
Fig. 3. Close-up of one of the slip rings
The specific heat capacity of the aluminium was
897 Jkg-1K-1 and the thermal conductivity 237Wm-1K-1.
The density was taken as 2700 kgm-3. In this work the
temperature dependence of these properties was
ignored since the maximum temperature was less than
300°C [7]. The energy balance is given by
.
∫ ρ U dV = ∫ qdS + ∫ rdV
V S V
(1)
Here, V is the volume of solid material, with surface
area S; ρ is the density of the material, U is the material
time rate of the internal energy, q is the heat flux per
unit area of the body, flowing into the body and r is the
heat supplied externally into the body per unit volume.
It is assumed that the thermal and mechanical problems
are uncoupled in the sense that U=U( θ ) only, where θ
is the temperature of the material, and q and r do not
depend on the strains or displacements of the body.
A Finite Element Thermal Model of the plate was
generated using ABAQUS, using DC3D8, an 8 node
linear heat transfer brick to mesh the plate.
3.1 Boundary Conditions
The heat conduction across the interface is assumed to
be defined by
q = k (θ A − θ B ) (2)
Here, q is the heat flux per unit area crossing the
interface from point A on one surface to point B on the
other, θA and θB are the temperatures of the points on
the surfaces, and k is the gap conductance.
The radiation heat flow per unit area between
corresponding points is assumed to be given by
q = E[(θ A − θ Z ) 4 − (θ B − θ Z ) 4 ] (3)
Here, θZ is the value of absolute zero temperature on
the temperature scale being used, q is the heat flux per
unit surface area crossing the gap at this point, from
surface A to surface B, θAand θB are the temperatures
of the two surfaces; and E is the gap radiation constant
derived from the emissivity of the two surfaces. The
convective heat transfer is defined by
q = h (θ − θ 0 ) (4)
Here, q is the amount of heat transferred per unit
area, h is the connective heat transfer coefficient and θ
is temperature of the surface at a given time.
The heat loss to the environment (ambient
temperature) is taken into account by using a surface
film coefficient of 10 W/m2k [8-10]. For the initial step
all the model surfaces, the internal and external air are
at room temperature. The volume of the internal and
external air is infinite and any turbulence in the air is
ignored (free convection).
3.2 Thermal Loads
220 W heaters with the dimensions of the aluminium
blocks which are shown in Figure 2 (75 mm by 65 mm
by 5 mm) were used for the simulation and for the
subsequent experimental measurements.
 Control of the uniformity of direct electrical heating for Rotational Moulding
4 Results and Discussion
Simulations were carried using one, two, three and four
heaters, which are distributed on the surface of the
plate. Only a few of these results are actually shown
here.
Fig. 4. Temperature Simulations and Paths 1 and 2 with all four
heaters on for 5 minutes of heating
Fig. 5. Temperature variations along Path 1 (top) and Path 2
(bottom) for the simulations in Figure 4
It was noticed during these simulations that with one
and two heaters being turned on continuously for five
89
minutes the temperature difference between the hottest
and coolest point on the plate is about 20°C and with
three and four heaters this temperature difference rises
to about 25°C. By way of comparison a simulation of
an impinging hot air jet was performed. This provides a
simple model of the hot air heating in the traditional
process. This model was created with a Fortran user
subroutine, DFLUX, linked to the ABAQUS model. In
this case the air jet moves in a defined rectangular path,
with the same corners as shown in Figure 3 for the four
heaters. The velocity of the moving jet was taken as
0.04 m/sec, so that the cycle is completed in 16
seconds.
Fig. 6. Temperature variations along Path-1 with moving air jet
Using this information, an initial control regime
based on the cycling of the electrical heaters was
modelled. Here, the heaters are controlled to switch on
and off in a prescribed and adjustable duty cycle and
sequence.
Duty cycles of 20, 10, 5, 4 and 2 seconds were
simulated and, as shown in Figure 6, the 2 second duty
cycle showed a great improvement over that of the
fixed (always on) regime.
Fig. 7. Temperature variation along Path 1 using a heating
sequence of 2 seconds (see text)
90 W. Ali Khan, J. Methven
The variation in temperature in Figure 7 follows Path 1
(Figure 4) and shows a maximum temperature
difference of only 6°C. This is roughly the same as that
found for the moving air jet.
This is an important outcome for the CHARM
process since it indicates that direct electrical heating is
a viable option to the traditional process providing the
heaters are controlled in this sort of fashion. Of course
this can be implemented in practice by means of a
programmable microcontroller such as a PIC or a PLC.
5 Experimental Verification
For completeness, the simulations were verified by
experiment with the temperature profiles measured
using a thermal imaging camera (FLIR Thermovision
A20). Some of these measurements are shown in
Figure 8. The results were consistent with the FE
Analysis
6 Conclusions
It is shown by simulation and experiments that uniform
temperature control in rotational moulding which uses
direct electrical heating is achievable. This represents a
significant advance in the development of the CHARM
process which has been shown to offers the prospect of
significant energy reduction - by a factor of at least 2 -
over the traditional oven-based process.
The next step in the refinement of the existing
CHARM machine is to embody the work described
here into a program for a microcontroller (PIC or PLC)
which can be used to control the moulding cycle.
Fig. 8. Thermal images of Aluminium Plate after 1 minute of
heating (top) and 5 minutes of heating (bottom). Note that the
vertical strips are the strangle bands used to attach the heaters to
the mould. See also, Figure 2.
7 References
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