Extrusion

Rodrigo Santos Andrade, 15044874,

Faculty of Science and Engineering,
Materials Processing, MT4943

Introduction

Extrusion is a common process used to produce shaped materials with use of raw sources
such as polymers, composites, etc. Usually products like pipes, sheets, wires, plastic bags
come from extrusion process which depends of parameters that will define the mechanical
properties of the final product such as velocity, cooling time, rate, etc.
An extruder consists of three main sections (Figure 1): Feed, Compression and Metering, that
allow the material to flow into a desired shape through a die. In the feed section the polymer
is introduced through a hopper into the first section of the screw, whereas the raw polymer is
going to fulfil the spaces on the screw lead, which is small sections between each flight.
Following the feed, the polymer then is melting down in the compression zone by
consecutives frictions and electric source to the final section, the metering zone. The final
section is responsible for homogenizing the final polymer and direct the flow to a die which
will shape the desired material.

Figure 1: Extruder sections.

The extruder screw is designed to develop the pressure required to pump the molten polymer
through the die, which also acts on the screw. Since the thrust bearing mechanism supports
the drive mechanism into which ts the shank of the screw, the thrust-bearing mechanism
resists the axial thrust exerted by the molten polymer on the screw. Pressures of up to 2000
psi can be developed in many extruder operations. Some polymers contain unreacted volatile
monomer, moisture, and entrapped gases, which might emit during the extrusion process and
potentially contribute to poor product quality. Some extruders are provided with vents to
remove these volatiles from the melt before it reaches the die. The vent is a hole in the barrel
about screw diameter size, and located about three-fourths of the distance from the feed
throat to the front of the barrel. In some cases, a vacuum is attached to the vent to facilitate
gas removal. The screw for a vented extruder, referred to as a two-stage screw, has a special
design. The screw section under the vent has a deep channel. The section of screw before the

vent can be considered a normal screw with feed, transition, and metering sections. The
section following the vent consists of a short transition zone and a metering section. The
channels of the metering section after the vent are deeper than those of the metering section
before the vent. This, coupled with the relatively higher channel depth under the vent, means
that the channel is partially lled at and beyond the vent section and aids gas removal.

Material and Methods

An Extruder Davis-Standard BC25 (MESA) was used in this experiment which consists four
electrical heaters around the barrel and three around the die. Polypropylene was used
following the PP 100-GA03 directories for injection processing. All the mechanic aspects are
shown in Table 1.
Table 1: Machine specifications.
D= barrel diameter

0.0254 [m]

= helix angle

17.75 []

P= pitch

0.0254 [m]

L= length of metering zone

0.02 [m]

h= channel depth

0.002 [m]

= materials viscosity

100 [Pa.s]

of PP = polypropylene density

900 [kg/m^3]

p = pressure difference between the front and rear of the metering zone

equal 1/3 of Pressure

e= flight kand width

0.003175 [m]

c= flight land clearance

0.0005 [m]

= helix angle

0.31 [rad]

A tutor explained all the settings and the machine functionality, furthermore presenting tests
and concepts about the process. All the data was collected for further discussions on the
subject.

Objective
The aim of this experiment is to provide understanding about Extruders, the concepts,
parameters and directories in the extrusion process.

Result and Discussions

Five machine settings were used in the experiment, changing between the velocity, pressure
and Haul off time as shown in Table 2.
Table 2: Machine Settings.

Screw Speed
[RPM]
1
2
3
4
5

30
33
36
36
36

Pressure [Bar]
0.1
2
2.6
2.6
2.6

Haul Off
[m/min]
1
1
1
1.2
1.4

weight 1m [g]
27.95
30.72
33.36
26.68
23

The information was collected through Table 2 and then calculations were made to obtain the
screw velocity and the mean velocity as shown in Table 3 and 4.
Table 3: Settings analyses in SI measurement.

Screw
Speed [RPS]
0.5
0.55
0.6
0.6
0.6

Pressure [Pa]
10000
200000
260000
260000
260000

p [Pa]
3333.3
66666.7
86666.7
86666.7
86666.7

Volume [m^3] per

m
3.1E-05
3.4E-05
3.7E-05
3.0E-05
2.6E-05

time 1m
[s]
60.0
60.0
60.0
50.0
42.9

Table 4: Screw velocities.

v
v
v
v
v

v [m/s]
0.0181
0.0199
0.0217
0.0217
0.0217

1
2
3
4
5

Mean velocity
[m/s]
0.0090
0.0100
0.0109
0.0109
0.0109

With the velocity, the dragging time, leakage, and pressure were calculated using the
Equation 1., as shown in the Table 5.
Table 5: Dragging time, Leakage and pressure.

Q
Q
Q
Q
Q

drag
drag
drag
drag
drag

1
2
3
4
5

9.2E-07
1.0E-06
1.1E-06
1.1E-06
1.1E-06

Q
Q
Q
Q
Q

leak
leak
leak
leak
leak

1
2
3
4
5

1.1E-08
2.2E-07
2.9E-07
2.9E-07
2.9E-07

Q
Q
Q
Q
Q

pres
pres
pres
pres
pres

1
2
3
4
5

8.2E-09
1.6E-07
2.1E-07
2.1E-07
2.1E-07

Then the actual and theoretical flow were calculated and discussed as shown in Table 6.

Table 6: Screw flow.

Setting
1
2
3
4
5

Theoretical Flow
9.1E-07
9.9E-07
1.1E-06
1.1E-06
1.1E-06

Actual flow
5.2E-07
5.7E-07
6.2E-07
5.9E-07
6.0E-07

Error
44%
43%
42%
45%
45%

The extrusion velocity has significant role on the thickness of the final product, as shown in
Table 3 and 4, different velocities were evaluated and more thickness were presented in
materials which higher velocity. Furthermore, pressure and rotational area were increased.
Consequently providing more cooling time and wider products. The thickness response is duo
basically to faster cooling throughout the contact with the water, therefore giving the material
dense alignments with good mechanical properties in the opposite side of the chain alignment
and good elastic stress through the alignment.

Pressure, cooling time, Haul off, and velocity can be change to provide several settings to a
wide range of polymer products. Therefore, pipes need to have specific settings for a desire
mechanic properties, the thickness can be promoted by a series of changes among these three
variables, pressure for more contact area, velocity for thickness and cooling time for shape
and mechanical resistance.

As can be seen in Table 6 and 5, the theoretical flow is different than the actual flow due to
disturbances, process called backflow, leakage and dragging time. Backflow happens along
the extrusion process which an amount of raw material come back to screw due to
exaggerated pressure, as same as leakage that occurs with loss of mass throughout the system.
However, this variables present small amount and cannot be seen directly during the process,
but impact considerably in the final flowrate.

Conclusion
The experiment showed the aspects and functionality of the extrusion process giving
understand of its concepts, parameters, properties that need to be taken in consideration and
its applications in the materials processing. During extrusion process it is important to know
the polymer characteristics and behaviour. Also, variables such velocity, pressure and cooling
have a strong significance in the properties in the final product.