ME495/595 Plastics Processing Engineering, 09/11/02, Page 1

Overview of plastics
processing methods

Reading: Chapter 1 of Baird’s book

Introduction
• Materials used in plastics processing
– Thermoplastics (dominating)
– Thermosetting plastics
• Dominant plastics processing methods:
– Extrusion (60%)
– Injection molding
• Other important polymer processing methods:
– Blow molding
– Thermoforming
– Compression and transfer molding
– Rotational molding
……
 ME495/595 Plastics Processing Engineering, 09/11/02, Page 2

Major processes for thermoplastics

• Extrusion
• Postdie processing
– Film blowing, fiber melt spinning, sheet forming,
etc.
• Injection molding
• Forming
– Blow molding, thermoforming, compression
molding.

Extrusion

The extruder is the main

device used to melt and
pump thermoplastics
through the shaping
device called die. There
are basically two type of
extruders: single- and
twin-screw. A single
screw extruder consists
of a screw that rotates
within a metallic barrel.
 ME495/595 Plastics Processing Engineering, 09/11/02, Page 3
Extruder screw geometry
Twin–screw extruders
Co-rotating twin screw extruder
Counter-rotating twin screw extruder
The length-to-diameter
ratio (L:D) for a extruder
screw usually falls in the
range of 20 to 24 with
diameters between 1.25
cm and 50 cm. The
primary design factors
are the screw pitch, and
the channel depth
profile. The main
function of a screw is to
melt solid polymer and
to deliver a
homogeneous melt to
the die.
There are as many as
twin-screw extruders as
single-screw extruders in
use today. Twin-screw
extruders are primarily
used to handle difficult-
to-process materials and
are also used for
compounding and mixing.
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Shaping and secondary operation

EXTRUSION Final Product (pipe, profile)

Postdie operation
! Fiber spinning (fibers)
Shaping ! Blown film (grocery bags)
through die ! Sheet forming

Preforms for
! Blow molding (bottles),
! Thermoforming
! Compression molding

Shaping Through Extrusion dies

The extrusion die shapes the polymer melt into

its final profile. It is located at the end of the
extruder and can be used to extrude:
• Flat films and sheets
• Pipes and tubular films for bags
• Filaments and strands
• Hollow profiles for window frames
• Open profiles
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Annular (tubular) dies

Pipe or tubing die. The polymer melt is separated into an

annulus, enters the die land, and exits in tubular shape.

Profile dies
Profiles are all extruded articles having cross-sectional
shape that differs from that of a circle, an annulus, or a
very wide and thin rectangle (such as flat film or sheet)
To produce profiles for windows, doors etc. we need
appropriate shaped profile dies. The cross-section of a
profile die may be very complicated
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Wire coating

The design problems concern providing uniform coating

at highest extrusion rate possible. Important process
variables include: pressure and feed rate. Important
phenomena needing to be addressed are: melt
Instability and die swelling.

Die Swell
Polymers, when extruded, exhibit very large swells,
usually d/D=1.5-2.5 but sometimes even more. The
swell depends on L/D of the die.

Dres D d

L
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Fiber spinning

Fiber spinning is used to manufacture synthetic fibers. The molten

polymer is first extruded through a filter or “screen pack”, to eliminate
small contaminants. It is then extruded through a “spinneret”, a die
composed of multiple orifices (it can have 1-10,000 holes). The fibers are
then drawn to their final diameter, solidified (in a water bath or by forced
convection) and wound-up.

Film-blowing process
The die is similar to that used for pipe or
tubing. The liquid is forced upward
through the thin annular slit, emerging
into the atmosphere as thin-walled
continuous tube. The tube is then, and
very rapidly hauled upwards by the pull
rolls, expanded by internal pressure, and
at the same time acted upon by cooling
air jets which cause it to solidify at some
tens of centimeters above the shaper
lips. The bubble is collapsed and the film
is rolled onto a wind-up roll. The stability
of the bubble is crucial
• Resulting in biaxially oriented film.
• Polymer of choice for films: branched
PE (tension stiffening)
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Flat film and sheet process

Injection molding
• Generally reciprocating screw injection molding
machine
– Screw rotates and forms metered volume of melt
– Screw ceases to rotate and acts as a ram, being thrust
forward to inject the melt into the mold.

Reciprocating screw
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Injection mold

Multi-cavity mold

Single-cavity mold

Blow molding
• Widely used technique for producing hollow
containers (bottles)
• Precursors known as parison produced by:
– Extrusion (tube with one end closed by nipping), or
– injection molding
• Inflation in softened state until it touches walls
of cooled mold
– Parison takes up shape of mold and cools
• Three variants
– Extrusion-blow molding
– Injection blow molding
– Stretch-blow molding
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Extrusion-blow molding

A parison is first extruded into the open mold (A). The

mold closes and the parison is inflated (B). When the
parison has taken up the mold shape (C), the bottle is
cooled and finally the mold opens (D).

Injection blow molding

The parison is injection molded onto a steel rod (station 1). The rod and the
parison are then rotated to the 2nd station (blow mold) to blow the parison to
take up the mold shape. The road and the bottle are next rotated to the 3rd
station at which the mold opens and the bottle is ejected.
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Stretch-blow molding
• Highly sophisticated equipment involved to cause
the blown bottle to have biaxial orientation in the
wall.
– Relatively low parison temperature
– A stretch rod is used
– High blow pressure
– Rapid cooling to lock the orientation
• Advantages:
– Higher transparency (less light scattering)
– Improved permeation resistance
– Higher rigidity and impact resistance
• Materials: PET, PVC, PP, (PS, ABS, PC)

Compression molding
• Mold: matched pair of male and female dies.
• Advantages:
– Polymer flows over shorter distance ⇒ Reduced frozen-in stress
– Polymer not forced through gate which can lead to reduction in
mechanical properties
• Procedures involved:
1. Measured quantity of polymer placed between the two halves of
mold
2. Upper die is lowered and polymer is compressed
3. Cooling until solid
4. Opening of mold and part removal
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Thermoforming
• Advantages over injection
molding:
– Large formings
– Thin-wall packaging
– Short-run or prototype
products
• Disadvantages:
– Polymer has to be
preheated before forming
– Range of available
shapes limited
– Good detail is difficult due
to low pressure difference
– Poor material distribution

Thermosetting plastics processing

• The starting material is prepolymer, e.g.

unsaturated polyesters.
• The mold temperature is typically about 100
°C higher than the barrel temperature. So
the prepolymer cures inside the mold.
• Two main processing methods:
– Injection molding
– Compression molding
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Composites manufacturing

• Injection molding of fiber reinforced plastics.

(both for thermoplastics and thermosetting
plastics)
• Compression molding
– Sheet molding compounding (SMC). SMC is a
sheet of thermosetting plastics reinforced by
glass fibers.
– Glass-fiber reinforced thermoplastics mats
(GMT).
• Pultrusion
(a process used for making continuous filament-
reinforced composite extruded profiles.)

Pultrusion
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Reaction injection molding (RIM)

• To reach short cycle time,
reaction must be rapid
• Used for polyurethanes
(mainly elastomeric for
automotive applications:
fender, bumpers, …)
• Micromixing of reactants
achieved by high-pressure
impingement of liquid jets.
• Post curing (typically 1 h @ ~
120°C) to complete
polymerization reaction
• Also used for large foamed
polyurethane parts.

Foam injection molding

1. Dispersion of inert gas through the molten region
directly before molding by
– Direct gas injection (usually N2) or
– Pre-blending of resin with chemical blowing agent
2. Rapid injection of gas/resin mixture into mold
cavity: gas expands explosively
– Material forced in all parts of mold
• Resulting properties:
– Very high rigidity/weight ratio
– Almost no orientation effect ⇒ uniform shrinkage
– Molding of thick sections without sink marks