EUROPEAN

POLYMER
European Polymer Journal 41 (2005) 2511–2517
JOURNAL
www.elsevier.com/locate/europolj

Study on residual stresses of thin-walled injection molding

Tong-Hong Wang, Wen-Bin Young *

Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan 70101, Taiwan, ROC

Received 4 December 2003; received in revised form 6 April 2005; accepted 11 April 2005
Available online 22 June 2005

Abstract

The residual stresses of the thin-walled injection molding are investigated in this study. It was realized that the
behavior of residual stresses in injection molding parts was affected by different process conditions such as melt tem-
perature, mold temperature, packing pressure and filling time. The layer removal method was used to measure the resid-
ual stresses at a thin-walled test sample by a milling machine. This simple method was demonstrated to be adequate for
a thin-walled part. Moldings under different conditions were investigated to study the effects of the process conditions
on the residual stresses of a thin-walled product using the elastic and viscoelastic models. The mold temperature was
found to affect the size of the core region and residual stress on the surface layer of a thin-walled part in our studied
range. The packing pressure was insensitive to the residual stresses in the studied high-pressure range. The residual
stresses predicted by the viscoelastic model are about the same level and trend as compared to the experimental
measurement.

2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Injection molding; Thin-walled molding; Residual stress; Layer removal

1. Introduction flow-induced residual stress and thermal induced resid-

Residual stresses are the stresses left inside the mold-
ing product under the condition of no external loads. In
the molding process, internal stresses are frozen inside
the mold cavity. After demolding, the residual stresses
will redistribute and cause the part shrinkage and war-
page. Possible thermal stresses may still be introduced
into the part after demolding because of further cooling
to the room temperature. The residual stresses com-
monly discussed in injection molding may include the
*
Corresponding author. Tel.: +886 627 575 7563672; fax:
+886 2389940.
E-mail address: youngwb@mail.ncku.edu.tw (W.-B.
Young).
ual stress. The flow-induced residual stresses include
those caused by polymer chain preferential orientations
and freeze-off packing pressure, and the thermal induced
residual stress is caused by non-uniform cooling of the
molding part.
Measurement of the residual stresses in a molding
part can be performed by either a non-destructive way
or a destructive way. The technology of photo-elasticity
utilizes the effect that the induced stresses inside a mate-
rial will diffract the incoming light and form an interac-
tion pattern. This pattern can be related to the stress
level and distribution inside the material. Neves and
Pouzada [1] measured the molecule orientation in thick-
ness direction using this technology. Treuting and Read
[2] used the layer removal method to measure the resid-
ual stress in each layer of a molding product. The layer

0014-3057/$ - see front matter
2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.eurpolymj.2005.04.019
2512 T.-H. Wang, W.-B. Young / European Polymer Journal 41 (2005) 2511–2517

removal method removed a small layer from the surface 2. Layer removal stress
of the part, leading to a measurable deformation. The
deformation shape of the part can be correlated to the After Demolding, the surface traction and moment
residual stress in the removed layer. Deformation will vanish in a flat molding part as shown in Fig. 1.
shapes for removing consecutive layers are measured For the surface in the x-direction, we have the condi-
until the middle plane of the part. In this way, the dis- tions of
tribution of residual stresses through the thickness Z z0 Z z0
direction of a part can be measured. Zoetelief et al. [3] rx ðzÞdz ¼ rx ðzÞz dz ¼ 0 ð1Þ

z0
z0
used the same method for measuring the through thick-
ness residual stresses. Instead of measuring the part where z0 is the half thickness. The z-axis is assumed to be
deformation after layer removed, Miller and Ramani in the thickness direction and x-axis is along the flow
[4] used an attached strain gage to estimate the stress direction during the injection. When a specified thick-
in the layer removal method. Except the machining ness of layer is removed from the surface as shown in
and cutting, Jasen et al. [5] used an excimer laser for Fig. 2, the total force and moment across the cross-
the layer removal to avoid the problems of the machin- section are no longer balanced. The resulting net unit
ing stress. Turnbull et al. [6] made a comparative assess- length force and moment in the x-direction can be ex-
ment of techniques for evaluating residual stress in pressed as
polymers. Emphasis was placed on the layer removal Z z1
and hole-drilling methods. A more speculative ap- F x ðz1 Þ ¼ rx ðzÞdz ð2Þ

z0
proach, the chemical probe technique, using the sensi- Z z1 h
tivity of the threshold stress for environment stress z0
z1 i
M x ðz1 Þ ¼ rx ðzÞ z þ dz ð3Þ
cracking to particular chemicals, has been developed
z0 2
to characterize near-surface stresses. Chien et al. [7] also where z1 is the left thickness above the original middle
had some discussion on the residual stresses for thin- plane of the part. Notice that, in calculation of the mo-
wall molded part. ment, the new middle plane is shifted down to (z0
z1)/2
In modeling the development of residual stresses in after some layers removed from the surface. The net unit
injection molded parts, it was realized that the stress
relaxation effect played an important role. Kabanemi
et al. [8] used a thermoviscoelastic model with volume
relaxation to calculate the residual stresses. A finite z
element based on plate theory was employed to simu-
late the injection parts with complex shapes. The ther-
mal and packing pressure variations in injection mold
processes were not included in the model calculation; y
instead a simple thermal equilibrium equation was
used. Lee et al. [9] has presented the physical modeling z0
and basic numerical analysis results of the entire injec-
tion molding process, in particular with regard to both
flow-induced and thermally-induced residual stress and -z0
x
birefringence in an injection molded center-gated disk.
Kamal et al. [10] used a three-dimensional numerical Fig. 1. The coordinate system and surface tractions on cross-
sections.
simulation to predict internal stresses in injection
molded components. The warpage of injection–
compression–molded optical media, such as compact
discs and digital video discs, due to asymmetric cool- z
ing during production was predicted by Fan et al.
[11].
This study used the layer removal method to measure
the residual stresses in a thin-walled injection molding y
part. A simple machine cutting method was used for
the layer removal and demonstrated to be adequate in
this case. The relative importance of processing param- z1
eters on the resulting level of residual stresses was also
investigated by numerical simulations using a viscoelas- -z0
x
tic model. Comparisons with the results from experi-
ments were also discussed. Fig. 2. Element showing layer to be removed.
 T.-H. Wang, W.-B. Young / European Polymer Journal 41 (2005) 2511–2517 2513

z1+z0

Fig. 4. The finite element model of the strip part.

2z0

model of the part and the node place that will be used
to show the residual stress distribution in the later study.
Material used for the study was ABS (PA-756S from
Chi-Mei, Taiwan). Tables 1–3 list some material con-
Fig. 3. Determination of the curvature of a deformed bar. stants which will be used in the process simulations.
An ultra high accuracy laser displacement meter (LC-
2400A, Keyence Corp.) was used to measure the defor-
length force and moment in the y-direction have the mation of the mid-point location ion the layer removal
same forms as Eqs. (2) and (3) except the subscript method. It could measure the displacement with accu-
changing from x to y. The bending moment of a plate racy up to 0.1 lm. Samples were molded under the con-
can be expressed by the bending curvatures [12]. ditions of 0.28 s injection time, 210 C melt temperature,
Eðz0 þ z1 Þ3 60 C mold temperature, and 168 MPa packing pres-
Mx ¼
½jx ðz1 Þ þ mjy ðz1 Þ ð4Þ
12ð1
m2 Þ sure. The packing time was 0.5 s and cooling time was
4 s.
where jx and jy are the curvatures in the x- and y-
The samples were cut to the size of 100 · 30 · 1 mm3
directions, E is the youngÕs modulus, and m is PoisonÕs
first and glued to the machine table by a double side
ratio. Substituting Eq. (4) into (3), one can derive the
tape. The first three cutting layers were 0.02 mm, and
residual stress in the x-direction

 the rest of layers were 0.06 mm until near the middle
E 2 djx ðz1 Þ djy ðz1 Þ plane. Totally, 10 layers were removed in the test. In
rx ðz1 Þ ¼
ðz 0 þ z 1 Þ þ m
6ð1
m2 Þ dz1 dz1 order to minimize the cutting stress and relaxation ef-
þ4ðz0 þ z1 Þ½jx ðz1 Þ þ mjy ðz1 Þ fects, different samples were used for the cutting of dif-
Z z0 

2 ½jx ðz1 Þ þ mjy ðz1 Þdz ð5Þ

z0 Table 1
Mechanical data and parameters for time–temperature shift
The residual stress in the y-direction can be derived by function
changing the subscript from x to y. For the case of a part
Material data Symbol Value
with equal stresses and curvatures in x- and y-directions,
one has the form for the residual stress as YoungÕs modulus E 2.312 GPa
 PoissonÕs ratio m 0.38
E djx ðz1 Þ
rx ðz1 Þ ¼
ðz0 þ z1 Þ2 þ 4ðz0 þ z1 Þjx ðz1 Þ Reference temperature Tr 373 K
6ð1
mÞ dz1 Thermal expansion coefficient a1 9.4 · 10
5 K
1
Z z0 
(liquid state)

2 jx ðz1 Þdz ð6Þ Thermal expansion coefficient a2 9.4 · 10
5 K
1

z0
(glassy state)
The bending curvature can be estimated by the following c1 14.22
equations: c2 47.01

1
jx ¼ ð7Þ
q
Table 2
2 2 Rheological data: cross-WLF viscosity
L þ 4/
q¼ ð8Þ Symbol Value
8/
n 0.2995
The definitions of L and / are shown in Fig. 3. s* 1.054 · 105 Pa
D1 2.655 · 105 Pa s
3. Experimental D2 373 K
D3 0
A simple strip part with dimensions 168 · 30 · 1 mm3 A1 23.74
A2 373 K
was used in this study. Fig. 4 shows the finite element
2514 T.-H. Wang, W.-B. Young / European Polymer Journal 41 (2005) 2511–2517

Table 3 where T is the temperature, c1 and c2 are material con-

pvT data: two-domain Tait model stants, and Tr is the reference temperature. The relaxa-
Symbol Value tion modulus G1 and G2 are described by the following
b1m 0.0009999 m3/kg
models:
b2m 5.7487 · 10
7 m3/kg K G1 ðtÞ ¼ 2luðtÞ ð13Þ
b3m 1.9213 · 108 Pa
G2 ðtÞ ¼ 3juðtÞ ð14Þ
b4m 0.0056107 K
1
b1s 0.00099971 m3/kg and
b2s 1.2130 · 10
7 m3/kg K  
b3s 2.0579 · 108 Pa
X
m
t
uðtÞ ¼ gr exp
ð15Þ
b4s 0.00011384 K
1 hr
r¼1
b5 373.8 K
b6 1.0678 · 10
7 K/Pa where gr, l, and j are material constants, and hr are
relaxation times. Due to the condition of the solidifica-
tion, the analysis of residual stress can be separated into
ferent depths. Three samples were used for each depth.
the following three cases:
The layer removal was performed by a milling machine
with the conditions of a 12 mm diameter cutter, a feed
1. The core region is above the no-flow temperature.
rate 25 mm/min, and a spindle speed 1000 rpm. In order
Since the core region is still under the packing pres-
to understand the cutting stress introduced to the sample
sure, rzz will equal to the local melt pressure, P(t),
during the machining. Some samples were annealed
and Drnzz is equivalent to the variation of local melt
under 90 C for 8 h. After cutting the annealed samples
pressure at time tn, DPn. The change of in-plane stress
to different depths, the measured deformation and cur-
can be written as [13]
vature were found to be relatively small in our setup.
Therefore, the cutting stress was considered negligible Drnxx ¼ Drnyy
in our system. ¼ ðuðDnn Þ
1Þrnxx þ a½DP n
ðuðDnn Þ
1ÞP n 
þ CðDnn Þða
1Þð3jÞDenth ð16Þ
4. Numerical simulation of the residual stress and

For a thin part, the in-plane dimension is larger than ð
2l þ jÞ

a ¼ 4l3  ð17Þ
the thickness. The shear stresses are neglected in the 3
þj
analysis of the in-mold residual stresses. The stresses
2. The entire layers are below the no-flow temperature.
to be determined are the three normal stresses. The nor-
As all the layers are below the no-flow temperature
mal stress, rz, is assumed to be constant in the thickness
and the material does not detach from the mold wall
direction. The polymer is assumed to behave as an iso-
(rzz < 0), the boundary condition of no displacement
tropic thermorheologically simple solid, in such a man-
in the thickness direction is employed. One has [13]
ner that stress components are related to histories of
Pnl Dzi
 
strain components and temperature through appropriate i¼1 CðDnn Þ ðuðDnn Þ
1Þrnzz
3jCðDnn ÞDenth
n
relaxation functions. The equations for the deviatoric Drzz ¼ Pnl Dzi
stresses and bulk stress are [13] i¼1 CðDnn Þ
Z t ð18Þ
oeij
sij ¼ G1 ðn
n0 Þ 0 dt0 ð9Þ Drnxx ¼ Drnyy
0 ot
Z t  
oðe
eth Þ 0 ¼ ðuðDnn Þ
1Þrnxx þ a Drnzz
ðuðDnn Þ
1Þrnzz
s ¼ G2 ðn
n0 Þ dt ð10Þ
0 ot0 þ CðDnn Þða
1Þð3jÞDenth ð19Þ
where sij and eij are the deviatoric stress and strain, s is 3. The material detached from the mold wall. As the
the bulk stress, e is the average normal strain, and eth material cools further, the compressive stress in the
is the thermal strain. The modified time scale n is related thickness direction may drop to zero, and the mate-
to the shift function as rial may detach from the mold wall. At this time,
Z t the conditions of rzz = Drzz = 0 is employed. The var-
nðxi ; tÞ ¼ U½T ðxi ; t0 Þdt0 ð11Þ iation of in-plane stress becomes [13]
0

and Drnxx ¼ Drnyy

c1 ðT
T r Þ ¼ ðuðDnn Þ
1Þrnxx þ CðDnn Þð3jÞða
1ÞDenth
log U ¼ ð12Þ
ðc2 þ T
T r Þ ð20Þ
 T.-H. Wang, W.-B. Young / European Polymer Journal 41 (2005) 2511–2517 2515

The calculation of the residual stresses requires the sim- 30

ulation of the complete injection molding cycle. This 20
10

Residual Stress (MPa)

involves a set of mass and energy balance equations 0
together with constitutive relations. Detailed informa- -10
tion regarding to the solution of the injection molding -20
-30
cycle and the above residual stress equations can be -40 Melt temp. 200°C
found in the literature [13,14]. -50 Melt temp. 210°C
-60 Melt temp. 220°C
-70
-80
-1 -0.8 -0.6 -0.4 -0.2 0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1
a Normalized Thickness
5. Results and discussion
30
Simulations of the developed residual stresses during 20

Residual Stress (MPa)

10
the molding process were performed using a code devel-
0
oped in the literature [13] for the viscoelastic model. The -10
commercial code of C-MOLD was used for calculations -20
-30
of the residual stresses using an elastic model. Fig. 5
-40 Packing pressure 136MPa
shows the comparison of the pressure traces from the -50 Packing pressure 153MPa
Packing pressure 168MPa
simulation prediction and experimental measurement -60
-70
at the position of the gate. The melt pressure rises shar- -80
ply during the filling stage and keeps about the same at -1 -0.8 -0.6 -0.4 -0.2 0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1
b Normalized Thickness
the packing stage. As the melt at the gate starts to freeze,
the pressure drops at the same time. The predicted pres- 30
sure was in the same trend as the experimental measured 20
Residual Stress (MPa)

10
value.
0
For numerical simulation results, the residual stresses -10
of the molding part presented at the following is located -20
at the node position shown in Fig. 4. Fig. 6(a) shows the -30
-40 Mold temp. 50°C
simulated residual stresses in the thickness direction of -50 Mold temp. 60°C
samples molded under different melt temperatures using Mold temp. 70°C
-60
an elastic model. The thickness in the plot was normal- -70
-80
ized to from
1 to 1. A thin skin layer is under tensile -1 -0.8 -0.6 -0.4 -0.2 0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1
stress while a compression stress in the sublayer. There c Normalized Thickness

were not many variations of the residual stresses for dif-
ferent melt temperatures in the range from 200 to
220 C. The effect of different packing pressures from
136 to 168 MPa on the residual stresses is shown in
Fig. 6(b). No obvious change was found in this case.
The effect of packing pressure on residual stress is usu-
ally found in the low packing pressure range. At this
range, the packing pressure drops to zero prior to the
180
160
140
Pressure (MPa)
Fig. 6. In-plane residual stress distributions for different: (a)
melt temperatures, (b) packing pressures, and (c) mold
temperatures calculated by an elastic model.
complete glass transition. In the high packing pressure,
the pressure distributions for different packing pressures
prior to entire glass transition only differ by a constant,
resulting in almost the same distribution of residual
stresses. However, the average cavity pressure for differ-
ent packing pressure will be different and cause different
shrinkages. Fig. 6(c) shows the effects of different mold
Measurement temperatures from 50 to 70 C on the through thickness
Simulation

120
residual stresses. Higher mold temperature tends to in-
100
crease the tensile stress in the surface, but without obvi-
80 ous effect on the rest of the part. A slightly larger core
60 region was noticed for higher mold temperature. In
40 numerical simulation of the residual stresses of the injec-
20 tion part using the elastic model tends to overestimate
0 the stress level because of the ignorance of the stress
0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5 3.0
Time (sec.)
relaxation effect. As the melt freezes during the cooling
process, the stress relaxation effect is quite fast near
Fig. 5. Pressure trace at entrance. the transition point. A large portion of the frozen stress
2516 T.-H. Wang, W.-B. Young / European Polymer Journal 41 (2005) 2511–2517

can be relaxed at this moment. Most of the residual Table 4

stress was built up at the following cooling process with Relaxation data for thermal stress calculation [3]
temperature far lower than the transition point. i hi gi
For the numerical simulation using a viscoelastic 1 4.706e
9 0.0605
model, Fig. 7(a) shows the residual stress through the 2 4.410e
6 0.1037
thickness for different melt temperatures. The calcula- 3 2.082e
3 0.3467
tions included both the shear and bulk relaxation. Table 4 6.198e
1 0.4884
4 lists the relaxation data from literature [3] for ABS 5 3.305e6 0.0004
plastics. In the core region, the packing pressure relaxes 6 2.749e8 0.0003
near the glass transition temperature, resulting in lower
residual stress. On the other hand, the skin-layer freeze-
off at the filling stage under a low pressure. During the
6
packing stage, packing pressure produces an elastic
5
strain in the skin layer, which releases as the packing
pressure drops off. The resulting stress is the tensile 4

Residual Stress (MPa)

stress induced by the thermal contraction. The residual 3
stress level shown in Fig. 7(a) is quite low compared 2
those from an elastic model due to the large stress relax- 1
0

10.0 -1
-2
Residual Stress (MPa)

7.5
melt temp. 200°C -1.0 -0.8 -0.6 -0.4 -0.2 0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0
5.0 melt temp. 210°C Normalized Thickness
melt temp. 220°C
2.5 Fig. 8. Measured in-plane residual stress distribution.
0.0

-2.5
ation near and above the glass transition point. Fig. 7(b)
shows the effect of the packing pressure on the residual
-5.0
-1.0 -0.8 -0.6 -0.4 -0.2 0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0 stress. As the case in the elastic model, no major effect
a Normalized Thickness can be found in the studied packing pressure range.
The effect of mold temperature is shown in Fig. 7(c).
10.0
The mold temperature has major effect at the stress level
7.5 packing pressure 136MPa at the skin layer since the material at this location is
Residual Stress (MPa)

packing pressure 153MPa quenched to the mold temperature at the filling stage.
5.0 packing pressure 168MPa
As the mold temperature increases, the core region is
2.5 larger, resulting in more stress relaxation during the
0.0 packing and less residual stresses.
From the experiments, the deformations and curva-
-2.5
tures of the samples can be measured. The resulting
-5.0 through thickness residual stresses can thus be calcu-
-1.0 -0.8 -0.6 -0.4 -0.2 0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0
b Normalized Thickness lated using the measured data and Eq. (6). Experimental
result (symbols) of the residual stress is shown in Fig. 8
30.0 together with the simulation result (solid line). The pre-
dicted stress level and trend are close to the experimental
Residual Stress (MPa)

25.0
mold temp. 50°C
20.0 mold temp. 60°C measurement. In the core region, the predicted value is
mold temp. 70°C
15.0
quite low as compared to the measured value. The pos-
sible reason might be that the used relaxation data over-
10.0
estimates the actual case, leading to the under-estimate
5.0
of the stress level in the core region.
0.0

-5.0
-1.0 -0.8 -0.6 -0.4 -0.2 0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0
6. Conclusions
c Normalized Thickness

Fig. 7. In-plane residual stress distributions for different: (a) The layer removal method was used to measure the
melt temperatures, (b) packing pressures, and (c) mold residual stresses at a flat thin-walled test sample. Mol-
temperatures calculated by viscoelastic model. dings under different conditions were investigated to
 T.-H. Wang, W.-B. Young / European Polymer Journal 41 (2005) 2511–2517
study the effects of the process conditions on the residual
stresses of a thin-walled product. The mold temperature
was found to affect the size of the core region and resid-
ual stress on the surface layer of a thin-walled part in
our studied range. The packing pressure was found to
be insensitive to the residual stresses in the studied
high-pressure range. The predicted stress level and trend
are close to the experimental measurement in viscoelas-
tic model. The layer removal method was also found to
be adequate for a thin-walled part.
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