Prediction of Cooling Time in Injection Molding by Means of a Simplied Semianalytical Equation

D. M. ZARKADAS
Otto York Department of Chemical Engineering, New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark, New Jersey 07102

M. XANTHOS
Otto York Department of Chemical Engineering, New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark, New Jersey 07102 Polymer Processing Institute, New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark, New Jersey 07102
Received: March 11, 2002 Accepted: April 10, 2003

ABSTRACT: A simplied semianalytical equation, used successfully in food

freezing/chilling time prediction, is proposed as a potential simple alternative for cooling time prediction in injection molding of polymer parts, amorphous or semicrystalline. This equation is based on a convective boundary condition for the mold-part interface and requires information on the thermal contact resistance (TCR) or thermal contact conductance (TCC) at this interface, as well as information on the initial and nal product temperatures, the mold surface temperature, and the thermal properties of the part. Eighty-ve data points for four polymers, Polystyrene (PS), Polycarbonate (PC), Polypropylene (PP), and Polyethylene (PE) were generated with C-MOLDTM , a commercial injection molding design software, and the performance of the proposed equation was tested. The % mean error and its standard deviation (SD) in cooling time prediction were, respectively, 11.61 and 2.27 for PS, 6.04 and 2.13 for PC, 7.27 and 6.55 for PP, and 8.88 and 2.93 for PE. It was also shown that the accuracy of

Correspondence to: M. Xanthos; e-mail: marinos.xanthos@njit. edu.

Advances in Polymer Technology, Vol. 22, No. 3, 188208 (2003) C 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

PREDICTION OF COOLING TIME IN INJECTION MOLDING the proposed equation is not affected signicantly by the exact knowledge of the TCC, provided that the latter is not smaller than 10002000 W m2 K1 . Since in this comparison all necessary temperatures were obtained from C-MOLDTM , methods of using the proposed equation independently were tested. The use of the inlet melt temperature as the initial product temperature increased the % mean error by mostly 1.5% while its SD remained practically the same. By incorporating a literature based heat balance method in the proposed equation, it was possible to use it as a stand-alone predictor of polymer cooling time. The % mean error and its SD calculated this way were, respectively, 9.44 and 0.97 for PS, 9.44 and 0.83 for PC, 14.22 and 5 for PP, and 20.12 and 1.38 for PE. The proposed equation, at least in a preliminary stage, can be used successfully to predict the cooling time of the selected semicrystalline or amorphous polymers with the accuracy being higher for amorphous polymers. C 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Adv Polym Techn 22: 188208, 2003; Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI 10.1002/adv.10048

KEY WORDS: Amorphous polymers, Cooling time prediction, Injection

molding, Semicrystalline polymers

Introduction

njection molding is the most important processing method of amorphous or semicrystalline polymers. Three different stages can be distinguished during the injection-molding process: lling, packing, and cooling. During lling, the polymer, which is above its Tm or Tg , is injected under pressure into the cavity of the mold, whose surface is kept at a temperature lower than the freezing temperature of the polymer. During packing, an additional amount of polymer is injected into the mold cavity to compensate for the subsequent volume shrinkage of the part. Finally, during cooling the part is cooled under constant mass and total volume down to a temperature that it can be ejected from the mold without being deformed (ejection or heat deection temperature) by means of cooling channels located on both sides of the mold cavity.1 From the above brief description, it follows that the most signicant parameters of the process are temperature and pressure and, of course, the type of material. These parameters directly affect the quality of the molded part and the duration of the cycle and especially the cooling time, which accounts for the largest part of the cycle. Therefore, it is evident that cooling time prediction is very important for the design and optimization of the injection-molding process. A substantial amount of the literature is dedicated to this problem and various kinds of approaches have been adopted to solve it. These can be

categorized into two general schemes: simulation of the complete injection molding cycle, where the prediction of cooling time, although part of the whole problem, is the most signicant one and prediction of cooling time only, disregarding the other stages involved. The rst approach,24 based on numerical techniques, is more popular among polymer scientists nowadays, since the development of computeraided engineering (CAE) software allows a detailed calculation and description of the molding cycle. The second approach deals only with the cooling cycle and involves both numerical techniques58 and simplied analytical911 or empirical formulas.12,13 The latter, if applicable, are very attractive due to their simplicity. All the above approaches, except the simple empirical formula, include the solution of the transient heat conduction equation in one or more dimensions with or without phase change (semicrystalline or amorphous materials, respectively) for the part and/or the transient heat conduction equation without phase change for the mold. In this sense, valuable insight to the problem can be gained from work that has been done in other elds, for example, in the prediction of chilling/freezing time of foods. The bulk of the relative literature is summarized extensively by Cleland.14 The food chilling/freezing problem is directly analogous to the cooling of a plastic part in an injection mold, since it involves the cooling of a solid material with variable thermal properties in the general case, which might or not (freezing or chilling, respectively) undergo solidication over a relatively

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PREDICTION OF COOLING TIME IN INJECTION MOLDING large temperature range. Also, the approaches adopted in the food-science eld were the same as for injection molding: numerical techniques and empirical/semianalytical formula. The latter are very attractive since they can predict, in a quick and robust manner, 90% of the experimental data with a precision of 10% and can also be applied to a range of regular and irregular shapes with the aid of a semianalytically calculated geometric factor.14 The objective of this study was to examine the potential applicability of the most successful of the empirical formula for food freezing time prediction to the injection-molding process. For this purpose, data was generated for both amorphous and semicrystalline polymers with C-MOLDTM , an injection molding design software, and the performance of the proposed equation was assessed. Although it was initially thought to also include experimental data for comparison, this was not possible, since at least to our knowledge, there is no complete data set in the literature with information on all the variables necessary to test the proposed equation. Instead, in injection molding a periodic or constant surface temperature boundary condition is used. Several empirical/semianalytical equations for the food-freezing problem have been summarized by Cleland.14 These were derived for one dimensional heat transfer in a slab, the simplest geometrical shape. The most successful of these, able to predict 90% of the data with a precision of 10%, was proposed by Pham.16 Phams equation is an extension of Plancks equation. The latter was derived for simple shapes (slab, cylinder, and sphere) with Newtons law of cooling, a convective boundary condition. Plancks equation describes the freezing process utilizing a boundary moving from the outer face of the product to its center. On this boundary it is assumed that the phase change (solidication) takes place at a single freezing temperature. A detailed derivation of Plancks equation can be found in Ref. [17]. The equation for the freezing time t of a at slab is given by the following relationship: t= Hf D D2 + Tf Tc 2h 8ks = Hf D Bi s 1+ 2h(Tf Tc ) 4 (1)

Proposal of a New Semianalytical Formula for Cooling Time Prediction in Injection Molding
THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
The freezing time prediction for food materials is an analogous problem to the cooling of polymers in an injection-molding process, especially when the polymer is semicrystalline. In both cases, latent heat must be removed from the product over a temperature range and the same equation, the transient heat conduction equation, must be solved. In the case of amorphous polymers no latent heat is involved in the calculations and the transient heat conduction equation must be solved for constant or variable thermal properties. Despite these similarities certain signicant differences do exist between the two problems. First, injection molding is performed under elevated pressures, a factor to be taken into account by incorporating an additional term in the heat conduction equation, to account for the variation of enthalpy with pressure.15 The second difference is related to the boundary condition used for the solution of the heat conduction equation. In almost all of the relative literature for food freezing, Newtons law of cooling is used, which is a convective boundary condition.

(notation is dened in the Nomenclature section). The assumptions on which Plancks equation is based, are the following:

Sensible heat effects are negligible, that is, the product is initially at its freezing temperature. Thermal conductivity and other thermal properties are constant below and above the freezing point. Cooling is symmetric, that is, the same heat transfer coefcient and coolant temperature is applied on both surfaces of the slab. All the above assumptions are not true in a real cooling/freezing process: thermal properties change with temperature, sensible heat must be removed, and in the case of food and polymers, solidication takes place over a range of temperatures. Also, asymmetric cooling is another possibility, frequently encountered in real processes. The error introduced from the rst two assumptions can be reduced if sensible heat effects are accounted and a mean freezing/solidication temperature is introduced. This forms the basis of Phams equation, which divides the cooling process into three distinct stages: precooling, freezing, and subcooling.16 The precooling and subcooling stages involve the removal of sensible heat, while during the freezing stage, the latent

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PREDICTION OF COOLING TIME IN INJECTION MOLDING heat of solidication is removed. Phams equation can be written as follows:
3

t=
i=1

Bi i ai Hi D 2 Ti h 1+

(2)

where H1 = C1 (Ti Tf ) T1 = (Ti Tc ) (Tf Tc ) (Ti Tc ) ln (Tf Tc ) 1 hD hD + 2 ks k1 Hf hD = Bi s ks (3) (4)

Bi 1 = H2 = Bi 2 =

(5) (6) (7) (8) (9) (10)

T2 = Tf Tc H3 = Cs (Tf Tave ) T3 = (Tf Tc ) (Tave Tc ) (Tf Tc ) ln (Tave Tc ) Tn Tc 4 2+ Bi 3

takes into account any residual latent heat effects and the temperature distribution inside the product. The denition of the average temperature Tave in Eq. (12) is based on a linear temperature prole inside the product, although no details were given in the original reference for its derivation.16 The values of the empirical constants a i for the precooling and subcooling stages were set equal to 6, based on a comparison of the cooling time predicted by Eq. (2) for i = 1, 3, with existent analytical solutions for cooling of innite slabs with the third kind of boundary condition and constant thermal properties. As noted by Pham,16 the accuracy of this approximation is better for higher product initial temperatures and lower Bi numbers. To conrm these conclusions, the same calculations were performed for an amorphous polymer, such as polystyrene (PS). The solution for the average mass temperature of a slab undergoing cooling with constant thermal properties and Newtons law of cooling is given from the following relationship (14): Yav = = Tav Tc Ti Tc
i=1

Bi 3 = Bi 2 Tave = Tn

2Bi 2 exp i2 Fo i2 Bi(Bi + 1) + i2

(13)

(11) where Fo is the Fourier number, dened as (12) Fo = kt CR2 (14)

Applying Eq. (2) involves the use of a mean temperature driving force for each stage dened by Eqs. (4), (8), and (10). Also, the specic heat and the enthalpy change for each stage are dened on a volumetric basis, which implies knowledge of the density of the liquid or the solid phase. The heat removed in each stage can be calculated from Eqs. (3), (6), and (9) and the total heat can be found as the sum of the heat removed in each stage. For i = 2, a 2 = 4 and Eq. (2) yields Plancks equation. It is evident that the use of only Plancks equation will underestimate the cooling time required, since extra time is needed in a real process to remove the sensible heat from the initial to the freezing temperature (precooling) and from the freezing to the nal temperature (subcooling). During precooling, the fact that part of the product might be frozen is taken into account by the denition of the Biot (Bi) number based on the average of the thermal conductivity values for the liquid and solid phases. The use of an average temperature for the subcooling stage

The rst seven terms of the series expansion were used for Bi numbers ranging from 0.1 to 100. The thermal properties used were averages of the values for the melt and the polymer below its glass transition temperature and were taken from the CMOLDTM database. Equation (13) was used to calculate Tav by assigning values for t. The calculated Tav was then substituted in Eq. (2) and the corresponding time for only the rst stage (i = 1) was calculated. The initial and calculated time values were then compared and the results are summarized in Table I, where the % error in the time prediction with Phams equation is tabulated for various Bi numbers and fractional temperature change values (1 Yav ). Also the % mean error and the standard deviation (SD) of the mean error for each value of fractional temperature change are presented. The latter two quantities are also presented in graphical form against the fractional temperature change in Fig. 1. As shown, the agreement between Phams equation and the existing analytical solution is very

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PREDICTION OF COOLING TIME IN INJECTION MOLDING TABLE I

Comparison of Phams Equation for the Precooling and Subcooling Stages with the Exact Analytical Solution for Heat Conduction in an Innite Slab with a Convective Boundary Condition, Expressed as % Error 1 Yav Bi 0.1 1 2 5 10 20 50 100 % Mean error SD 0.95 0.01 0.85 2.15 5.05 7.37 9.14 10.49 11.00 5.76 4.38 0.9 0.01 0.71 1.78 4.15 6.05 7.50 8.62 9.04 4.73 3.60 0.8 0.01 0.44 1.08 2.42 3.47 4.28 4.91 5.15 2.72 2.04 0.7 0.00 0.15 0.29 0.41 0.42 0.41 0.39 0.38 0.31 0.15 0.6 0.00 0.22 0.72 2.21 3.65 4.85 5.84 6.23 2.96 2.53 0.5 0.01 0.72 2.10 5.90 9.53 12.65 15.26 16.30 7.81 6.56 0.4 0.02 1.47 4.17 11.47 18.65 25.05 30.64 32.93 15.55 13.18 0.3 0.03 2.70 7.49 20.31 33.41 45.88 57.48 62.46 28.72 24.79 0.2 0.07 5.02 13.24 34.86 58.51 83.49 109.61 121.83 53.33 47.68 0.1 0.17 10.09 24.05 61.13 106.97 165.12 243.11 288.68 112.41 109.85

good for values of 1 Yav above 0.5. For these values, the range of % error is 1116% (see Table I), with the latter values corresponding to the highest Bi number tested. It is also evident from Table I that even at high Bi numbers the prediction error will be small, if 1 Yav is between 0.6 and 0.8. Since

these values are common in most cooling processes, it follows that Eq. (2) can be used with success for the modelling of heat conduction without change of phase. As a nal note, it should also be mentioned that the values presented in Table I agree with the values quoted in Table I of the original reference.16

FIGURE 1. Comparison of Phams equation for the precooling and subcooling stages with the exact analytical solution for heat conduction in an innite slab with a convective boundary condition.

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APPLICATION OF PHAMS EQUATION IN INJECTION MOLDING

Application of Eq. (2) in injection molding presents certain difculties. First, the heat transfer coefcient must be known, which implies a convective boundary condition. Boundary conditions mostly used in injection molding are constant or periodic mold surface temperatures, although an equivalent heat transfer coefcient has also been reported in the literature. This can be dened by applying a resistance in series model, which includes the resistance from the cooling channel to the mold, the resistance inside the mold, and the TCR at the mold-part interface. If y is the distance of the cooling channel from the cavity surface and km the thermal conductivity of the mold material, an overall heat transfer coefcient can be dened from the following relationship: 1 y 1 y 1 1 + + TCR = + + = h hc km hc km TCC (15)

TABLE II
Thermal Contact Conductance for Various Polymers (after Yu et al. (Ref. 18) and Marotta and Fletcher (Ref. 19)) Marotta & Fletcher (Ref. 19)

Yu et al. (Ref. 18) TCR (m2 K W1 )

Polymer

TCC TCC (W m2 K1 ) (W m2 K1 ) 1251176 333833 2631667 5002000 5882500 410939

PC 0.000850.0080 Acetal 0.00120.0030 PPO 0.00060.0038 PS 0.00050.0020 PP 0.00040.0017 PE Teon ABS Nylon 6,6

240280 10951660 500630 140180 320380

Equation (15) is presented here only as a general case. Depending on how many resistances are taken into account one should appropriately dene the cooling medium temperature, i.e., if all resistances are taken into account, then the average coolant temperature should be used in combination with the overall heat transfer coefcient calculated from Eq. (15). The use of Eq. (15) requires the knowledge of the thermal contact resistance or its inverse, the TCC. Measurements of TCR are summarized in Table II along with the calculated values for TCC.18,19 From a design point of view the cooling channel and the mold should not present a lot of resistance in heat transfer. Table II shows that in some cases TCC is less than 500 W m2 K1 , which means that the mold-part resistance is the controlling factor. Therefore, the overall heat transfer coefcient can be approximated by a known value of TCC as a function of pressure, temperature, and part thickness, or alternatively, all resistances can be taken into account. It should be noted, however, that the values of Table II are rather high as stated by Shridhar,20 who found that for PS the value of TCR is around 104 m2 K W1 . Shridhar also noted that the value of TCR changes during the injection molding cycle and at the later stages of postlling approaches the values found by Yu et al.18 Moreover, the values quoted by Marotta and Fletcher19 were found to be rather high and this was attributed to the waviness of the surface of the samples used in that experimental study.

Another problem with Eq. (2) is the use of the cooling medium temperature, which depending on the choice made, might or not change with time. A rst approximation would be the use of the cooling channel temperature, which implies no or minimal resistance inside the mold and can also be considered constant during the cycle. A second alternative would be to use the mold surface temperature at the mold-part interface; this, however, changes with time and as a time dependent variable cannot be directly incorporated in Eq. (2). As stated in the literature,2,5,6,21 the mold surface temperature varies as much as 20 C during a cycle and therefore an obvious choice would be to use an average surface temperature during the cycle. From the above discussion, it is evident that Eq. (2) cannot be applied for polymer cooling time prediction without some modications. For amorphous polymers, the use of Eq. (2) only for i = 1 and with Tf equal to the nal product average temperature is rather straightforward. It is also anticipated to be quite accurate (within 15%), as long as the thermal properties of the polymer do not vary substantially with temperature and mean values can be used. Therefore, for amorphous polymers, the following equation will be used for cooling time prediction: Bi 1 6 H1 D 2 Ti h 1+

tam =

(16)

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PREDICTION OF COOLING TIME IN INJECTION MOLDING where H1 = C1 (Ti Tn,ave ) T1 = (Ti Tc ) (Tn,ave Tc ) (Ti Tc ) ln (Tn,ave Tc ) (17) (18) on cooling rate, although existent, is rather weak. Pham23 presented a simplied version of his equation where a mean freezing temperature dened for all foodstuffs was a weak function of only coolant temperature and not cooling rate. This is not the case, however, for polymers, for which the crystallization temperature strongly depends on cooling rate. From a calculation point of view, this will affect both the driving force Ti and the enthalpy Hi that has to be removed in each respective stage, as is evident from Eqs. (2) to (10). It is also apparent that the cooling time calculated from Eq. (2) is proportional to the ratio of the above two quantities Hi / Ti . The qualitative dependence of the cooling time for polypropylene on crystallization temperature is plotted in Fig. 2. It is evident that the dependence of crystallization temperature on cooling rate will result in substantially different values for the time taken to bring the system down to its nal temperature. The problem is that the cooling rate cannot be known a priori and therefore Tf cannot be calculated. The second modication of Phams equation involves the calculation of the enthalpy change during the second stage. semicrystalline polymers can reach only a certain degree of crystallinity X , the ultimate

In the above equations Tc is set equal to the mold surface temperature and the Bi number is calculated with a mean thermal conductivity value, according to Eq. (5). A sample calculation is given in the Appendix. Use of Eq. (2) with semicrystalline polymers is more complicated. The use of a distinct solidication temperature in Eq. (2) might be erroneous and as shown by Sieet et al.22 this approach might lead to some deviations. However, Phams equation is able to handle this discrepancy for foodstuffs. Another difference is that foodstuffs freeze over a smaller range of temperatures compared to polymers. For example, 85% of the water contained in meat products freezes between 1 and 5 C,14 while for a polymer like polyethylene, solidication occurs through a temperature range as high as 50 C (Fig. 4). Also, for the usual rates involved in food freezing, the dependence of freezing temperature

FIGURE 2. Dependence of cooling time of PP on crystallization temperature.

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PREDICTION OF COOLING TIME IN INJECTION MOLDING crystallinity. Therefore H2 = X Hc (19) mold-melt average heat transfer coefcient), the part geometry in the form of a nite element mesh, and the material properties. For the latter, an extensive database accompanies the software and will be used in the remainder of this study. The software predicts the velocity, pressure, displacement, and temperature elds inside the cavity during the injection molding cycle. The cooling time generated from the software and used for comparison with Phams equation was taken equal with the packing (hold) time plus the cooling time, which are given as input. The part used for the simulations was taken from CMOLDTM and it approaches a at slab geometry as is shown in Fig. 3. Uniform thickness was assumed for the whole part.

which implies that the ultimate crystallinity is achieved and the solidication time calculated will have a maximum value. In this sense, the system is overdesigned. A more correct approach would be to write H2 = Xn Hc (20)

where Xn is the nal/actual degree of crystallinity achieved. Application of Eq. (20) would then require the incorporation in some way of the crystallization kinetics, possibly by using the Avrami equation.24 To overcome the above problems, namely, the dependence of crystallization temperature on cooling rate and the fact that the ultimate crystallinity is not always achieved in real processes, various calculations schemes were investigated in this work and incorporated in Phams equation. As to be explained in the next section, these will not be reported here since it was not possible to compare their performance with real or software generated data. Therefore, for semicrystalline polymers, the full version of Phams equation will be used (Eqs. (2)(12)) with the following modications: Equation (12) will not be used and Tave in Eqs. (10) and (11) will be substituted by the desired nal average mass temperature Tn,ave . A sample calculation is given in the Appendix.

AMORPHOUS POLYMERS
Two amorphous polymers, polystyrene (PS, Hi Styron 475) and polycarbonate (PC, Calibre 301 4) from Dow Chemicals, were chosen to compare the results generated by C-MOLDTM with the predictions of Eq. (16). Various values of the average mold-melt heat transfer coefcient (80025000 W m2 K1 ) and product thickness (25 mm) were used. C-MOLDTM database values for the thermal properties needed for the calculation are summarized in Table III. For both polymers constant specic heat and thermal conductivity values were used as well as a mean density, which was taken as the average of the value at the beginning of the hold time (packing stage at elevated pressure) and the value at the end of the postlling stage. The initial temperature was taken equal to Tlling , generated by the software. The software also calculates Tn,ave , which was used in Eqs. (17) and (18). The simulations were carried in such a way that

Results and Discussion

As stated already, there are no experimental data, at least to the authors knowledge, that contain all necessary information (heat transfer coefcient, mold temperature, and nal part average temperature) for the application of Phams equation in injection molding. Therefore, its performance could only be assessed either parametrically or by making certain assumptions. Since this approach cannot justify with certainty its validity for cooling time prediction, it will not be further examined here. The only other alternative was to generate data with a commercial software package (C-MOLDTM , Mold Flow, Ithaca, NY) that simulates the lling, postlling, mold cooling, and shrinkage/warpage processes in injection molding and other plastics processing operations. It requires as input the process conditions (lling/packing/cooling time,

FIGURE 3. Model used for the simulations (default model in C-MOLDTM ).

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PREDICTION OF COOLING TIME IN INJECTION MOLDING TABLE III

Physical Properties of the Polymers Used in the Simulationsa Amorphous Polymers PS Hi Styron 475 C p (J kg1 K1 ) k (W m1 K1 ) (kg m3 ) Ejection temperature (K) 2100 0.15 1035 347.1 PC Calibre 301 4 1960 0.19 1190 400.1

The mean error and its SD for the whole data set were 8.87% and 3.37% respectively. The second approach tried is also consistent with the fact that the mold surface temperature varies through the injection molding cycle as much as 20 C, as noted in the relevant literature.2,5,6,21 It is also apparent from the different results obtained in each case that the mold surface temperature affects signicantly the cooling time prediction. Tables IV and V indicate that Eq. (16) systematically underpredicts the required cooling time. This can be attributed to two factors: a. A comparison of the total heat load as calculated from Eq. (17) with the heat load calculated from C-MOLDTM showed that the former is 4 10% lower. This, as evident from Eq. (16), will lead to an underprediction of the cooling time that is analogous to the error in the heat load prediction. The % mean error in cooling time prediction, if the heat load calculated from CMOLDTM is used, will be 5.24 and 1.06% for PS and PC, respectively, while the % SD values practically remain the same. These numbers are 6.37 and 7.1% higher than the initially calculated mean error for PS and PC, respectively. They are also almost identical to the % mean error in the total heat load predicted from Eq. (17) as compared to the values calculated from CMOLDTM (values are 6.7 and 7% for PS and PC, respectively). It is therefore evident, that a signicant part of the cooling time prediction error results from errors in the assigned product properties and, particularly, density. The latter changes more than the specic heat with pressure. Therefore, if the pressure prole during the cycle is known approximately, an average density value that is close to the cycle average can be calculated and this will reduce signicantly the error in cooling time prediction. b. By referring to the data of Tables IV and V, it can be noticed that the fractional temperature changes, 1 Yav , for PS and PC are approximately 0.95 and 0.83, respectively. From Table I it is apparent that for these values, Eq. (16) will tend to underestimate the cooling time and this effect will be more pronounced for PS, which presents a higher value of 1 Yav . It should also be noted that the Bi numbers obtained during the simulations are considerably higher than the values of Table I and the prediction error did not increase appreciably with the Bi number. This provides additional

Semicrystalline Polymers PP HJ 220 C pl (J kg1 K1 ) kl (W m1 K1 ) l (kg m3 ) C ps (J kg1 K1 ) ks (W m1 K1 ) s (kg m3 ) Hc (J kg1 ) Crystallization temperature (K) Ultimate crystallinity
a

PE HD Dowlex IP 22 2864 0.241 820 2437 0.304 914.5 293000c 373.2 0.6c

2634 0.164 835 2100 0.216 921.3 234000b 393.1 0.63b

All properties are from C-MOLDTM database except otherwise noted. b Ref. 24, p. 107. c Personal communication with Dr. Victor Tan (Polymer Processing Institute at NJIT), December 2001.

the latter temperature was lower than the ejection temperature of the polymers, quoted in Table III. Required mold temperature values were also generated by the software. All conditions (including the Bi number) and the results for PS and PC are shown in Tables IV and V, respectively. Two different ways were used to calculate the cooling time with Eq. (16):

Using Tmold,ideal , which is the mold surface temperature at the beginning of the cycle and does not change throughout the cycle. Using Tmold,ave , as generated from the software, which takes into account variations of the mold surface temperature during the cycle. It is evident from Tables IV and V that the second approach is much more successful, accurate within 15% and 3% for 42 points, and with a low SD of the mean error of about 2% for each polymer.

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PREDICTION OF COOLING TIME IN INJECTION MOLDING TABLE IV

Tlling (K) 491.5 491.6 491.6 491.6 491.6 491.9 491.9 492.0 492.1 492.1 492.1 492.0 492.1 492.1 492.3 492.3 492.3 491.6 491.6 491.7 491.8 491.8 491.8 % Mean error SD (%)
a b

Comparison of Phams Equation for Amorphous Polymers (PS Hi Styron 475) with Data Generated From C-MOLDTM Tmold,ave Tn,ave Tn,cen D h (K) (K) (K) (103 m) (103 W m2 K1 ) 327.1 327.3 327.0 326.1 325.8 328.3 328.3 328.3 327.4 326.9 325.9 329.3 329.2 329.2 328.0 327.3 326.9 325.4 325.2 325.1 324.9 324.4 323.9 337.4 338.8 338.5 341.6 340.6 335.0 335.6 336.3 335.7 338.0 336.9 333.6 333.9 334.5 333.6 335.6 336.6 340.0 340.0 340.3 341.5 343.4 343.3 347.2 347.3 346.3 347.9 346.9 347.2 346.5 346.6 345.0 346.9 345.1 346.7 345.4 345.7 343.9 346.1 347.2 347.4 346.0 345.7 346.4 347.9 347.7 3.2 3.2 3.2 3.2 3.2 2.5 2.5 2.5 2.5 2.5 2.5 2.0 2.0 2.0 2.0 2.0 2.0 4.0 4.0 4.0 4.0 4.0 4.0 25 10 5 1 1 25 10 5 2 1 0.8 25 10 5 2 1 0.8 25 10 5 2 1 0.8 Bi 529 212 106 21 21 417 167 83 33 17 13 333 133 67 27 13 11 667 267 133 53 27 21 tC-MOLD tPham a tPham b (s) (s) % Error (s) % Error 38.2 37.0 38.0 40.0 41.0 28.2 27.9 27.8 30.0 30.7 33.0 21.0 21.0 21.0 23.2 24.0 24.6 53.0 53.4 53.8 54.5 56.0 58.0 22.4 22.2 22.9 26.4 26.8 14.6 14.7 15.1 16.8 18.5 20.1 9.6 9.8 10.1 11.6 13.2 14.0 33.9 34.3 34.9 36.4 38.8 40.6 41.36 39.99 39.62 33.99 34.52 48.21 47.22 45.82 44.13 39.71 38.97 54.16 53.17 51.74 50.04 44.99 43.17 36.09 35.76 35.10 33.25 30.72 29.96 41.38 7.18 34.1 33.3 34.2 37.0 37.8 24.5 24.2 24.5 26.6 27.7 29.8 17.8 17.9 18.0 19.9 20.9 21.4 47.4 47.7 48.3 49.6 51.5 53.5 10.80 10.10 10.03 7.42 7.88 13.10 13.08 11.91 11.37 9.78 9.84 15.14 14.69 14.17 14.14 12.76 12.92 10.47 10.62 10.15 9.04 7.99 7.83 11.61 2.27

Tmold,ideal = 313.1 K was used as the coolant temperature Tc . Tmold,ave was used as the coolant temperature Tc .

evidence that the proposed equation can be used successfully for the prediction of cooling time of amorphous polymers in injection molding, a fast cooling process.

SEMICRYSTALLINE POLYMERS
Two semicrystalline polymers, polypropylene (PP HJ220, Tonen Chemicals) and polyethylene (PE HD Dowlex IP 22, Dow Chemicals) were tested. All thermal properties for both liquid and solid phases, taken from the C-MOLDTM database, are summarized in Table III, along with the ultimate crystallinity and the heat of fusion of a perfect crystal. The crystallization temperature was taken equal to the temperature that corresponds to the peak in the specic heat plot vs. temperature. These plots obtained by DSC mea-

surements at a cooling rate of 0.33 K s1 , were taken from the C-MOLDTM database and are presented in Fig. 4. Since C-MOLDTM does not predict the crystallinity of the part, it was not possible to incorporate in the proposed equation the crystallization kinetics. Instead, the simulations were carried in such a way that the nal part temperature was sufciently lower than the crystallization temperature and it was assumed that the ultimate degree of crystallinity was achieved under these conditions. This assumption is expected to hold with only small deviations since the crystallization kinetics are increasingly faster at lower temperatures. The latent heat of crystallization was calculated from Eq. (19) by substituting from Table III the values for the ultimate crystallinity and the latent heat of crystallization of a perfect crystal. The initial product temperature was set equal to the

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PREDICTION OF COOLING TIME IN INJECTION MOLDING TABLE V

Tlling (K) 577.1 577.2 577.4 578.0 578.7 578.7 578.5 579.3 580.4 582.7 582.7 582.7 580.6 580.8 581.3 582.0 582.0 582.0 % Mean error SD (%)
a b

Comparison of Phams Equation for Amorphous Polymers (PC Calibre 301 4) with Data Generated From C-MOLDTM Tmold,ave Tn,ave Tn,cen D h (K) (K) (K) (103 m) (103 W m2 K1 ) 341.8 341.5 341.3 340.6 338.7 337.9 348.5 348.0 347.7 346.5 344.5 343.4 336.7 336.6 336.6 335.8 333.9 332.7 375.8 376.6 377.6 380.8 382.6 384.8 376.1 376.2 376.4 379.4 384.7 386.9 376.8 377.5 379.0 380.4 380.9 379.3 390.4 389.0 388.9 390.9 391.9 393.7 392.6 390.0 388.7 390.8 395.0 396.8 387.3 387.5 388.7 389.6 389.4 387.4 4 4 4 4 4 4 3 3 3 3 3 3 5 5 5 5 5 5 25 10 5 2 1 0.8 25 10 5 2 1 0.8 25 10 5 2 1 0.8 Bi 526 211 105 42 21 17 395 158 79 32 16 13 658 263 132 53 26 21 tC-MOLD tPham a tPham b (s) (s) % Error (s) % Error 34.5 34.6 34.8 35.4 37.5 38.0 22.0 22.4 22.8 23.3 24.0 24.5 49.0 49.0 49.0 50.5 54.0 57.0 26.0 26.2 26.7 27.8 30.7 31.5 14.7 15.0 15.6 16.7 18.3 19.1 40.5 40.7 40.9 43.0 47.1 50.2 24.55 24.22 23.38 21.49 18.26 16.99 33.16 32.83 31.56 28.16 23.86 22.22 17.40 16.99 16.47 14.94 12.82 11.94 21.74 6.59 32.0 32.0 32.4 33.2 35.7 36.3 19.8 20.1 20.7 21.6 22.6 23.1 46.6 46.7 46.9 48.6 52.2 55.1 7.25 7.40 6.82 6.14 4.76 4.42 9.86 10.11 9.04 7.35 5.83 5.53 4.88 4.66 4.30 3.67 3.31 3.37 6.04 2.13

Tmold,ideal = 323.1 K was used as the coolant temperature Tc . Tmold,ave was used as the coolant temperature Tc .

respective value at the end of the lling stage. Also, Tn,ave generated by the software was used in place of Tave in Eqs. (9) and (10) for the subcooling stage. All process conditions and results are summarized in Tables VI and VII for PP and HDPE, respectively. Again, two different mold surface temperatures were tried: ideal and average as in the case of amorphous polymers. As anticipated, the second approach was more successful. For PP, the agreement between the C-MOLDTM results and the predictions of the proposed equation was rather striking. The % mean error was 7.3% and its SD only 6.55%. If the results for the smallest thickness (2 mm) are not taken into account, these values reduce to 3.73% and 1.35%, values extremely low considering the simplicity of the proposed equation. The results were not, however, so satisfactory for HDPE. In this case, the proposed equation systematically overpredicted the required cooling time and the mean error and its SD were 22.9 and 2.5%, respectively. The value of the SD was again small, which suggests that Eq. (2) can consistently predict the cooling time as process-

ing conditions, namely the heat transfer coefcient and the product thickness, change. The introduced systematic positive error was rst attributed, at least partially, to the assumption that the ultimate degree of crystallinity was achieved. Inspection of the specic heat curve in Fig. 4 for HDPE shows that for the nal product temperatures considered in these simulations (around 335 K) a signicant amount of the polymer might have not crystallized. At this temperature range the specic heat curve is still steep, which means that crystallization is still taking place. This was not the case for PP, where the specic heat curve attens at the range of temperatures used as the nal product temperature (343355 K). However, such an explanation cannot account completely for the large positive error in the calculated cooling time. Since this overprediction is observed with only PE and is in contrast with all other polymers tested, the specic heat curves of both polymers were examined to determine if the values of H2 used in the calculations were erroneous. Equation (19) yields H2 (on a mass basis) values of

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(a)

(b)

FIGURE 4. Specic heat as a function of temperature. (a) PP HJ220 and (b) PE HD Dowlex IP 22 (data taken from C-MOLDTM database).

175.8 and 147.4 kJ kg1 for PE and PP, respectively. The respective values calculated by numerical integration of the available specic heat curves were 59.2 and 145.7 kJ kg1 . For PP, essentially the same number was obtained, which means that the polymer used in the simulations approaches the ultimate crystallinity. For PE however, the assumption that ultimate crystallinity was attained will simply lead to a considerable overprediction of the cooling time, because of a corresponding overprediction of the product heat removed during the solidication stage. Using the above value of latent heat, it was found that the specic polymer (HDPE) has 20.22% crystallinity, as opposed to the 60% value used initially. New calculations were performed for both polymers and the results are also shown in Tables VI and VII for PP and PE, respectively. It is clear that for PP the results are practically the same, while for PE the cooling time now is underpredicted with a % mean error of 8.88% and a %SD of 2.93%. The % error is lower in absolute terms and it is also in agreement with the general trend found for all polymers used in the simulations, that is, an underprediction of cooling time. The above results also clearly show the effect that product thermal properties can have on cooling time prediction. However, this effect is not that pronounced for the solidication stage. It was shown that for PE a 300% difference in the latent heat of

crystallization yielded approximately a 30% difference in cooling time prediction mean error, between the two calculations. This has to do with the fact that the solidication stage in injection molding is not as signicant as in food freezing. Even, if the ultimate crystallinity is achieved, the simulations performed show that the solidication stage will account at most for 40% of the total cooling time. Crystallization kinetics, however, should be incorporated in the whole calculation scheme if better accuracy is to be attained. As in the case of amorphous polymers, it was also found that the use of Eqs. (3), (6) or (20) and (9), for the estimation of the heat removed from the product during the cycle, resulted in lower values as compared to the ones calculated from C-MOLDTM . Therefore, the proposed equation will, in general, tend to underestimate the cooling time for semicrystalline polymers. In this case, however, the % error in heat load prediction was considerably higher, ranging from 15 to 20%. This effect is not reected in the cooling time prediction, although the cooling time in each stage is proportional to the heat removed. In the case of semicrystalline polymers, it is not evident, however, how to quantify and attribute to each stage this observed difference in heat load prediction. Since the % mean error in cooling time is considerably less than the % error in heat load

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PREDICTION OF COOLING TIME IN INJECTION MOLDING TABLE VI

Tlling (K) 506.6 506.6 506.7 507.0 507.0 507.0 506.2 506.2 506.3 506.5 506.5 506.5 506.5 506.2 506.2 506.3 506.5 506.5 506.5 507.3 507.3 507.4 507.7 507.7 507.7 % Mean error SD (%)
a b

Comparison of Phams Equation for Semicrystalline Polymers (PP HJ220) with Data Generated From C-MOLDTM Tmold,ave Tn,ave Tn,cen D h tC-MOLD tPham a tPham b tPham c 3 m) (103 W m2 K1 ) (K) (K) (K) (10 (s) (s) % Error (s) % Error (s) % Error 328.1 327.7 327.3 326.5 325.2 324.7 330.0 329.5 329.1 328.3 327.2 326.6 325.0 333.8 333.1 332.2 330.9 329.8 329.0 337.4 336.5 336.0 335.2 333.6 332.3 354.6 354.0 354.2 356.3 358.4 360.3 344.8 344.0 343.9 346.1 351.6 353.7 361.0 345.0 343.6 342.0 343.0 348.9 350.4 342.6 341.3 341.9 344.4 351.7 353.0 363.4 362.9 363.0 364.6 366.0 367.2 355.3 353.9 353.7 355.8 361.0 362.9 368.8 360.6 356.5 353.2 353.4 358.8 360.2 368.3 363.6 363.4 365.0 371.3 371.0 5 5 5 5 5 5 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 3 3 3 3 3 3 2 2 2 2 2 2 25 10 5 2 1 0.8 25 10 5 2 1 0.8 0.5 25 10 5 2 1 0.8 25 10 5 2 1 0.8 75.0 76.0 77.0 79.0 83.5 85.0 55.0 56.0 57.0 58.5 60.5 62.0 66.0 35.0 36.0 37.5 39.3 40.5 41.8 21.8 22.5 22.9 23.5 24.3 25.3 59.0 60.0 61.2 63.8 68.8 70.8 41.1 42.0 43.2 45.5 48.5 50.1 54.2 23.1 23.9 25.2 27.4 29.9 31.4 10.6 11.1 11.6 13.0 14.7 15.8 21.31 21.04 20.56 19.19 17.63 16.76 25.35 24.95 24.27 22.19 19.91 19.25 17.81 33.89 33.50 32.87 30.25 26.28 24.94 51.30 50.67 49.34 44.83 39.64 37.74 29.02 10.95 72.4 73.2 74.2 76.3 80.4 81.9 53.9 54.9 56.0 57.5 59.1 60.2 63.0 33.0 34.0 35.6 37.3 38.4 39.5 17.4 18.3 18.5 19.4 20.0 20.9 3.50 3.64 3.63 3.46 3.73 3.61 1.99 1.93 1.83 1.71 2.35 2.95 4.56 5.61 5.43 5.11 5.20 5.17 5.40 19.98 18.83 19.34 17.61 17.60 17.45 7.27 6.55 72.0 72.9 73.8 75.9 80.0 81.5 53.7 54.7 55.7 57.2 58.8 59.9 62.7 32.9 33.9 35.4 37.1 38.2 39.4 17.4 18.2 18.4 19.3 19.9 20.8 3.98 4.12 4.11 3.94 4.22 4.10 2.42 2.36 2.25 2.15 2.81 3.41 5.03 6.02 5.83 5.50 5.59 5.59 5.82 20.30 19.14 19.65 17.94 17.97 17.83 7.68 6.50

Tmold,ideal = 313.1 K was used as the coolant temperature Tc . Tmold,ave was used as the coolant temperature Tc and X was used for the calculation of the latent heat of crystallization ( H = 234 0.63 = 147.4 kJ kg1 ). c Tmold,ave was used as the coolant temperature Tc and H was calculated as 145.7 kJ kg1 from the specic heat curve (see Fig. 4a).

prediction, it is believed that the use of three different stages, with different heat load and driving force each, tends to average somehow the overall effect of the heat load underprediction. Finally, the effect of the assigned heat transfer coefcient at the mold-part interface on cooling time prediction will be assessed here. This is the most crucial assumption of the proposed equation, since it involves a different kind of boundary condition than the one used in the majority of the injection molding literature and also requires the knowledge of the TCR, which, in general, is not easily available or precisely known. It was also chosen to present this

effect for a semicrystalline polymer, because predicting the cooling time for semicrystalline polymers is a much more difcult problem. Hence, any shortcoming of the proposed equation will become more apparent. The effect of TCC on cooling time prediction by the proposed equation is shown in Fig. 5 for PE and for various values of product thickness. Also, the corresponding curve for a 5 mm thickness part based on C-MOLDTM cooling time data is presented for comparison. It is rst observed that for all product thickness values there is a certain value of TCC above which, the predicted cooling time is essentially the

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PREDICTION OF COOLING TIME IN INJECTION MOLDING TABLE VII

Comparison of Phams Equation for Semicrystalline Polymers (PE HD Dowlex IP 22) with Data Generated From C-MOLDTM Tlling (K) 509.1 509.2 509.5 509.5 509.5 509.5 509.9 510.1 510.3 510.3 510.3 510.3 511.2 511.4 511.6 511.6 511.6 511.6 % Mean error SD (%)
a b

Tmold,ave Tn,ave Tn,cen D h tC-MOLD tPham a tPham b tPham c 3 m) (103 W m1 K1 ) (K) (K) (K) (10 (s) (s) % Error (s) % Error (s) % Error 328.2 327.6 327.1 326.1 324.3 323.6 331.5 330.6 329.8 328.4 326.7 325.8 334.4 333.4 332.3 330.7 328.8 327.7 336.1 335.3 335.0 336.1 337.1 337.9 336.7 335.4 334.6 334.8 336.9 337.5 336.1 335.0 334.1 334.2 336.3 336.5 344.8 343.4 343.1 344.0 344.4 344.8 346.7 344.6 343.6 343.4 345.0 345.2 348.9 346.3 344.6 343.5 344.8 344.7 5 5 5 5 5 5 4 4 4 4 4 4 3 3 3 3 3 3 25 10 5 2 1 0.8 25 10 5 2 1 0.8 25 10 5 2 1 0.8 72.1 74.1 76.1 79.1 85.1 87.6 50.1 52.1 54.1 57.1 59.6 61.6 34.1 35.6 37.2 39.1 40.9 42.6 55.3 56.7 58.6 62.8 70.4 73.9 35.4 36.6 38.2 42.1 47.8 50.8 20.1 20.9 22.1 25.1 29.5 31.9 23.24 89.7 24.36 23.43 91.4 23.29 23.05 93.2 22.43 20.55 96.0 21.39 17.33 101.9 19.73 15.62 104.8 19.63 29.37 63.4 26.63 29.80 65.3 25.27 29.45 67.2 24.25 26.28 70.2 22.88 19.87 73.7 23.63 17.61 76.1 23.55 40.92 43.2 26.72 41.16 44.8 25.82 40.53 46.0 23.58 35.79 46.8 19.65 27.81 48.9 19.54 25.11 50.8 19.31 27.05 8.14 22.87 2.50 65.1 66.7 68.3 69.9 74.0 76.0 46.4 48.3 50.1 52.1 54.0 55.7 32.9 34.5 35.5 35.6 36.4 37.8 9.74 9.94 10.31 11.60 12.99 13.22 7.31 7.29 7.44 8.67 9.38 9.59 3.57 3.16 4.48 8.87 11.00 11.32 8.88 2.93

Tmold,ideal = 303.1 K was used as the coolant temperature Tc . Tmold,ave was used as the coolant temperature Tc and the X was used for the calculation of the latent heat of crystallization ( H = 293 0.6 = 175.8 kJ kg1 ). c Tmold,ave was used as the coolant temperature Tc and H was calculated as 59.2 kJ kg1 from the specic heat curve (see Fig. 4b).

same and does not depend on the TCC. This value lies for the specic case around 2000 W m2 K1 . Figure 5 shows clearly that prediction of cooling time will be accurate, even if the TCC is not known precisely, provided of course that the latter does not become smaller than this lower limit. Even for values between 800 and 2000 W m2 K1 , the error introduced by the uncertainty in the TCC value will be less than 10%. However, for TCC values lower than the ones used in this study (800 W m2 K1 ) the dependence of cooling time on TCC will be considerably stronger, since the convective resistance on the product surface will be comparable with the conduction resistance inside the product. This effect is not an artifact of the proposed equation. By inspection of the curves for product thickness of 5 mm, it is shown that qualitatively the proposed equation predicts the same dependence of cooling time on TCC as C-MOLDTM does. The two curves can be almost

superimposed; this clearly shows that the proposed equation can predict both qualitatively and quantitatively the dependence of cooling time on the heat transfer coefcient at the mold-part interface. As a nal remark, it should be stated that the corresponding graphs for the other polymers used in the simulations show similar trends. Therefore, it can be concluded that for TCC values above 800 W m2 K1 , but preferably above 2000 W m2 K1 , the proposed equation can be used successfully for cooling time prediction of both amorphous and semicrystalline polymers, even if the TCC value is not precisely known.

PRACTICAL IMPLEMENTATION OF THE PROPOSED EQUATION

In a practical calculation, the designer should be able to calculate the required cooling time without

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PREDICTION OF COOLING TIME IN INJECTION MOLDING

FIGURE 5. Dependence of cooling time on TCC as predicted by Phams equation. PE HD Dowlex IP 22. having to resort to any kind of software. Therefore, in this section, ways of using the proposed equation independently will be proposed and tested. The rst difculty to overcome is the determination of the product initial temperature. As suggested by the simulations, the temperature of the product at the end of the lling stage is different from the melt inlet temperature by 9 C at most. If the proposed equation is to be used independently, the only viable alternative is to set the initial product temperature Ti equal to the melt temperature that is entering the cavity. This is not expected to increase signicantly the error in cooling time prediction by Eqs. (2) or (16). TABLE VIII
Inuence of Initial Temperature on the Prediction Accuracy of Phams Equation in Injection Molding Case Ia Polymer PS Hi Styron 475 PC Calibre 301 4 PP HJ220 T PE HD Dowlex IP 22
a b

To conrm this, the required cooling time was calculated for the average mold surface temperature and the initial temperature equal to the melt inlet temperature and compared with the results obtained in the two previous sections. The % mean error and its SD for the two different cases and all four polymers used in this study are presented in Table VIII along with the inlet melt temperature. It is evident that the proposed approximation does not affect the SD of the mean error, while the latter increased by 1.5%, at most. With regard to the mold surface temperature, it is apparent from Tables IVVII that the mold surface

Case IIb SD (%) 2.27 2.13 6.50 2.93 % Mean Error 11.77 7.58 8.28 9.87 SD (%) 2.26 1.86 6.48 2.97

Tmelt (K) 491.1 573.1 503.1 503.1

% Mean Error 11.61 6.04 7.68 8.88

Ti = Tlling , as calculated by C-MOLDTM . Ti = Tmelt .

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PREDICTION OF COOLING TIME IN INJECTION MOLDING temperature used signicantly affects the cooling time prediction. This should be expected, since Tc is involved in the calculation of the driving force for each stage. Therefore, its precise knowledge is vital to the use of the proposed method and calculation methods independent of any kind of software are necessary. The heat balance method proposed by Rao et al.11 which enables the simultaneous calculation of mold surface temperature and product cooling time is among the ways to achieve this goal. The method is based on the following equations:

Heat transferred from the melt to the cooling medium: Qm = (Cp1 (Ti Tn,ave ) + Hf,m ) 1 D x (21) 2

1. An initial value for the mold surface temperature is given, with the only requirement that it is higher than the coolant temperature. 2. Based on the value given in step 1, the cooling time is calculated from Eqs. (16) to (18) for amorphous polymers and from Eqs. (2) to (11) for semicrystalline polymers, as described in the previous sections. 3. If heat losses to the environment are neglected, Qm = Qw and Eq. (22) is solved for Tmold . The iteration continues until Tmold converges. This is the calculated average mold surface temperature, which is used in the calculation of the cooling time according to step 2. The input information required for the application of the above iterative procedure involves the cooling medium temperature, the Reynolds number in the cooling channel (which essentially refers to the cooling medium velocity), the geometric characteristics of the channel layout, and the mold thermal conductivity, all of which can be essentially chosen by the designer. To have the same basis of comparison with the performed simulations, all these data were taken from C-MOLDTM and are summarized in Table IX, together with the melt inlet temperature, which was used as the initial product temperature. The cooling medium used in all simulations was water and its properties were taken from the NIST WebBook online database. The remaining of the data needed (product nal temperature, heat transfer coefcient

Heat received from the cooling medium in time tRao : Qw = tRao 1 1 + km Se h c dc

1

(Tmold Tw ) (22)

where Se is the shape factor for heat transfer inside the mold material, given by Se = 2 2x sin h(2 y/x) ln dc (23)

h c is the heat transfer coefcient in the cooling channels calculated by the following correlation: Nu = 0.027Re 0.8 Pr 0.4 (24)

TABLE IX
Data Used for Cooling Time Prediction by Incorporating Raos Heat Balance Method in Phams Equation Polymer PS Hi Styron 475 Ti (K) Tw (K) Re 491.1 308.1 26102 PC Calibre 301 4 573.1 304.0 23694a PP HJ220 Tonen Chemicals 503.1 303.3 71068 PE HD Dowlex IP 22 503.1 303.2 142450

tRao is the cooling time predicted from the following analytical solution for heat conduction in a solid without change of phase: tRao = D2 ln 2a 4(Ti Tmold ) (Tn,cen Tmold ) (25)

Equation (25) refers to the time required to bring the temperature at the center of the product to a certain value. Hence, the product center temperature should be used, which introduces an inconsistency in Raos method, since in Eq. (21) an average product temperature is used for the heat balance. This inconsistency does not exist in the proposed method, where an average product temperature is used. Raos heat balance method can be incorporated in Phams equation as follows:

Mold and Cooling Channel Data km (W m1 K1 ) dc (m) x (m) y (m)

a

36.5 0.0111 0.0635 0.0333

For product thickness of 5 mm Re was 71068.

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PREDICTION OF COOLING TIME IN INJECTION MOLDING TABLE X

Performance of Phams Equation with the Incorporation of Raos Heat Balance Method Case Ia Phams Eq. Polymer PS Hi Styron 475 PC Calibre 301 4 PP HJ220 Tonen Chemicals PE HD Dowlex IP 22
a b

Case IIb Raos Method Phams Eq. % Mean Error 6.19 6.31 8.74 11.53 % SD 2.27 1.02 3.24 2.01 Raos Method % Mean Error 14.50 2.34 27.86 36.44 % SD 9.39 6.87 5.73 8.04

% Mean Error 9.44 9.44 14.22 20.12

% SD 0.97 0.83 5.00 1.38

% Mean Error 16.67 4.84 34.66 41.02

% SD 10.37 7.49 5.62 8.59

Product heat load calculated from Eq. (21). Product heat load calculated from Eq. (21) based on C-MOLDTM data.

at the mold-part interface, product thickness, and physical properties) can be found in Tables IIIVIII. The results of the calculations are presented in Table X. Also included are the results for Raos original method (Eqs. (21)(25)), in which, the cooling time is calculated from Eq. (25). The product nal center temperature, needed in Eq. (25), is also tabulated in Tables IVVIII. The results of Table X show a negative increase in the mean error for Phams equation, as compared to the initial predictions of Tables IVVII, which were obtained by using C-MOLDTM data for the mold temperature. The % mean error for all polymers studied is ranging between 9% and 20%. However, in all cases the SD was lower, ranging from 0.8 to 5% and is extremely low, less than 1%, in the case of amorphous polymers. This clearly shows that the proposed equation, in addition to good accuracy, also yields consistent results as processing conditions change, by contrast to Raos method, which yields poorer results, especially for semicrystalline polymers. This is anticipated, since the use of Eq. (25) requires the use of a mean thermal diffusivity. The % mean error is higher in all cases compared to Phams equation, except in the case of PC. Also, the overall prediction is characterized by a considerably higher SD, which will yield scattered results. The additional observation from Table X, that both methods underpredict the required cooling time, is mostly attributed to errors in heat load prediction; however, part of it, up to 1.5% according to Table VIII, is due to the use of the melt inlet temperature as the product initial temperature. During the calculations it was found that Qm from Eq. (22) was 323% lower than the corresponding value calculated based on C-MOLDTM data. An attempted correction by using Phams equations to

calculate H in each step (Eqs. (3), (6), and (9)) resulted in Qm values that were in average 1% higher. It seems, therefore, that the heat to be removed from the product, as calculated by any of the simplied methods presented here, will always be less than the actual and either method, will, in general, underpredict the required cooling time. This will be true even if the actual Qm value calculated based on CMOLDTM data is used, as shown in Table X, where the results are better for both Phams equation and Raos method, but still the % mean error is negative. Hence, the observed underperediction of the required cooling time is unavoidable by both methods and it stems from the use of average product thermal properties.

Conclusions
A simple semianalytical formula, successful in the prediction of food freezing/cooling times, was proposed for the prediction of cooling time of polymerparts, amorphous and semicrystalline, in injection molding. This equation was tested against data generated with C-MOLDTM , a commercial software for injection molding design, for a part of at slab geometry. For amorphous polymers a data set of 42 points for commercial grades of PS and PC was generated. The proposed equation performed satisfactorily with a mean error of 8.87% and a SD of 3.37% and under a variety of cooling conditions (Bi numbers ranging from 10 to 530). It was found that the proposed equation will tend to underestimate the required cooling time for two reasons. First, the

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PREDICTION OF COOLING TIME IN INJECTION MOLDING total heat that has to be removed from the product is underpredicted, mostly because of the fact that the density of the polymer changes throughout the cycle and this cannot be easily incorporated in a calculation scheme with average product properties. However, if the pressure prole during the cycle is approximately known, the average density of the polymer can be approximated within 10% and this will also be the approximate error in cooling time prediction. Second, it was shown that for the 1 Yav (0.70.9) and for the Bi numbers usually encountered in injection molding, the proposed equation will tend to underestimate the cooling time mostly by 510%. The semicrystalline polymers tested were commercial grades of PP and HDPE. For PP, 25 data points were generated and the mean error and SD introduced in the cooling time prediction by use of the proposed equation were 7.3 and 6.55%, respectively. For HDPE, a data set of 18 points was generated and the proposed equation yielded a mean error of 8.88% and a SD of 2.97%. These values are more than satisfactory if one considers the simplicity of the proposed equation and the fact that it only requires hand calculations or can easily be implemented in a spreadsheet. Again, the underprediction of the required cooling time by Phams equation was attributed to errors in the prediction of the product heat load. Since all the data were generated with the help of C-MOLDTM , different ways of using the proposed equation independently were demonstrated. The rst modication involved the use of the melt inlet temperature as the initial product temperature. This approximation increased the % mean error by 1.5% at most, while it did not affect its SD. The second modication involved the average mold surface temperature used in the calculations. Raos heat balance method was incorporated in Phams equation as means of predicting the average mold surface temperature independently and using the proposed equation as a stand-alone predictor of polymer cooling time. The % mean error was 9.44% for both amorphous polymers studied, while its SD was 0.97 and 0.83% for PS and PC, respectively. For PP and HDPE the % mean error was 14.22 and 20.12%, respectively, while the SD again remained low, 5 and 1.38%, respectively. These results clearly show, that the proposed equation is a better predictor than Raos method, possibly the most successful of the simplied equations for cooling time prediction in injection molding. In summary, the proposed equation, at least in a preliminary stage, can be used successfully in the prediction of cooling time in injection molding of both amorphous and semicrystalline polymers, with the prediction accuracy being better for amorphous polymers. Its accuracy is satisfactory for engineering purposes, while it can also predict successfully the changes in cooling time as processing conditions change. In addition, its accuracy is not affected signicantly by the most important of the assumptions on which it is based, namely the assignment of a heat transfer coefcient at the mold-part interface, as long as the latter is not less than 10002000 W m2 K1 . Future work should concentrate toward the more accurate prediction of the product heat load during the cycle, the incorporation of the crystallization kinetics for semicrystalline polymers, and an extension of the analysis to products of more complicated geometry.

Nomenclature
ai Empirical constants taken equal to 6 for i = 1, 3 (precooling and subcooling stage respectively) and 4 for i = 2 (solidication stage) Bi number for stage i Volumetric heat capacity of phase j, J m3 K1 , j = l, s Specic heat capacity of phase j, J kg1 K1 , j = l, s Cooling channel diameter, m Product thickness, m Heat transfer coefcient, W m2 K1 Heat transfer coefcient in the cooling channel, W m2 K1 Heat of crystallization of the polymer (for a perfect crystal), J m3 Heat of crystallization of the polymer (for a perfect crystal), J kg1 Latent heat of fusion/crystallization, J m3 Latent heat of fusion/crystallization, J kg1 Enthalpy change during stage i, J m3 Subscript denoting stage, i = 1 chilling, i = 2 freezing, i = 3 subcooling Subscript denoting phase, j = l for liquid, j = s for solid Thermal conductivity of phase j, W m1 K1 , j = l, s Thermal conductivity of the mold material, W m1 K1

Bi i Cj C pj dc D h hc Hc Hc,m Hf Hf,m Hi i j kj km

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PREDICTION OF COOLING TIME IN INJECTION MOLDING l Nu Pr Qm Qw R Re s Se t tC-MOLD tPham tRao Tav Tave Subscript denoting the liquid (unsolidied) phase Nusselt number Prandtl number Heat transferred from polymer melt to cooling medium, J m1 Heat received from the cooling agent in time t, J m1 Half thickness of the product, m Reynolds number Subscript denoting the solid (solidied) phase Shape factor calculated from Eq. (24) Cooling time, s Cooling time predicted by C-MOLDTM , s Cooling time predicted by Phams equation, s Cooling time predicted by Raos method, Eq. (25), s Mass average temperature, K Average product temperature during the subcooling stage as dened in Eq. (12), K Cooling medium temperature, K Freezing (solidication) temperature, K Mass average temperature at the end of the lling stage, K Final temperature at the center of the product used in Eq. (12), K Final product mass average temperature, K Final product center temperature used in Eq. (25), K Polymer melt temperature, K Polymer glass transition temperature, K Initial temperature, K Mean temperature driving force during stage i, K Inlet melt temperature, K Mold surface temperature as calculated from Raos method, K Ideal mold surface temperature equal with the value at the beginning of the injection mold cycle, K Average mold surface temperature, K Cooling water temperature, K Thermal contact conductance at the mold-part interface, W m2 K1 Thermal contact resistance at the mold-part interface, m2 K W1 x Xn X y Yav i j Spacing distance between cooling channels, m Final product crystallinity Ultimate crystallinity Distance of the cooling channel from the mold surface, m Fractional unaccomplished temperature change Polymer thermal diffusivity, m2 s 1 Coefcient found as the root of i tan i = Bi Density, kg m3 Density of phase j, kg m3 , j = l, s

Appendix: Sample Calculations

AMORPHOUS POLYMERS
The case for PC Calibre 301 4, product thickness of 4 mm and TCC of 25000 W m2 K1 , will be presented here. The necessary physical properties are taken from Table III. From Table V the nal product temperature is 375.8 K and the initial temperature (end of lling stage) is 577.1 K. The heat to be removed is found from Eq. (17): H1 = 1960 1190 (577.1 375.8) = 469.5 108 J m3 From Table V the average mold surface temperature is 341.8 K and the driving force for heat removal is found from Eq. (18): T1 = (577.1 341.8) (375.8 341.8) ln[(577.1 341.8)/(375.8 341.8)]

Tc Tf Tlling Tn Tn,ave Tn,cen Tm Tg Ti Ti Tmelt Tmold Tmold,ideal

= 104.06 K Finally, from Eq. (16) the cooling time is calculated: 1+ (25000 0.004)/0.19 6 2 104.06 25000

tam = 469.5 108 0.004 tam = 32 s

Tmold,ave Tw TCC TCR

SEMICRYSTALLINE POLYMERS
The case for PE HD Dowlex IP 22, product thickness of 5 mm and TCC of 25000 W m2 K1 , will be presented. The necessary physical properties are taken from Table III, except for the heat of crystallization, which is 59.2 kJ kg1 . Initial product

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PREDICTION OF COOLING TIME IN INJECTION MOLDING temperature, nal product temperature, and average mold surface temperature are taken from Table VII and are 509.1, 336.1 and 328.2 K, respectively. The solidication temperature is 373.2 K. Calculations proceed as follows:

Driving force, Eq. (8): T2 = 373.2 328.2 = 45 K Cooling time (Eq. (2) for i = 2): t2 = 54.2 107 0.005 = 12.50 s

Precooling stage (i = 1) Bi number (Eq. (5)): Bi 1 = 1 1 25000 0.005 + 2 0.241 0.304

1 + (411.2/4) 2 45 25000

= 464.9 Heat to be removed, Eq. (3): H1 = 2864 820 (509.2 373.2) = 319.1 108 J m3 Driving force, Eq. (4): T1 = (509.1 328.2) (373.2 328.2) ln[(509.1 328.2)/(373.2 328.2)]

Subcooling stage (i = 3) Bi number (Eqs. (7) and (11)): Bi 3 = Bi 2 = 25000 0.005 = 411.2 0.304

Heat to be removed, Eq. (9): H3 = 2437 914.5 (373.2 336.1) = 82.7 107 J m3 Driving force, Eq. (10) with Tave = Tn,ave : T3 = (373.2 328.2) (336.1 328.2) ln[(373.2 328.2)/(336.1 328.2)]

= 97.7 K Cooling time (Eq. (2) for i = 1): t1 = 319.1 108 0.005 = 25.64 s

1 + (464.9/6) 2 97.7 25000

= 21.33 K Cooling time (Eq. (2) for i = 2): t3 = 82.7 107 0.005 = 26.95 s The total cooling time is found by adding the respective times for each stage: t = tl + t2 + t3 = 25.64 + 12.50 + 26.95 = 65.09 65.1 s 1 + (411.2/6) 2 21.33 25000

Solidication stage (i = 2). Bi number (Eq. (7)): 25000 0.005 Bi 2 = = 411.2 0.304 Heat to be removed, Eq. (3): H2 = 59245 914.5 = 54.2 107 J m3 . If alternatively, the crystallinity achieved and the heat of crystallization of a perfect crystal are known, then Eq. (20) should be used. In this case the respective values are 20.2% and 293 kJ kg1 . The heat of crystallization would be H2 = 0.2022 293000 914.5 = 54.2 107 J m3 which is identical with the value found from Eq. (3).

Acknowledgments
The authors thank Dr. Victor Tan of the Polymer Processing Institute at NJIT for supplying extensive data on polymer thermal properties and Mr. Linjie Zhu of the Mechanical Engineering Department at NJIT for his kind help with the C-MOLDTM simulations.

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PREDICTION OF COOLING TIME IN INJECTION MOLDING

12. Busch, J.; Field, III, F.; Rosato, D. V. SPE Regional Technical Conference, V1, Boston, 1985; Paper No. 430. 13. Yu, C. J.; Sunderland, J. E. Polym Eng Sci 1992, 32(3), 191. 14. Cleland, A. C. Food Refrigeration Processes: Analysis, Design and Simulation; Elsevier: New York, 1990. 15. Dietz, W. Polym Eng Sci 1978, 18(13), 1030. 16. Pham, Q. T. Int J Refrig 1984, 7, 377. 17. Heldman, D. R.; Singh, R. P. Food Process Engineering, 2nd ed.; Avi Pub: Westport, CT, 1981. 18. Yu, C. J.; Sunderland, J. E.; Poli, C. Polym Eng Sci 1990, 30(24), 1599. 19. Marotta, E. E.; Fletcher, L. S. J Thermophys Heat Tr 1996, 10(2), 334. 20. Shridhar, L. Investigation of Thermal Contact Resistance at a Plastic-Metal Interface in Injection-Molding; Ph.D Thesis; NJIT, 1999. 21. Tang, L. Q.; Chassapis, C.; Manoochehri, S. Finite Elem Anal Des 1997, 26, 229. 22. Sieet, W. L.; Dinos, N.; Collier, J. R. Polym Eng Sci 1973, 13(1), 10. 23. Pham, Q. T. J Food Eng 1986, 21, 209. 24. Baird, D. G.; Collias, D. I. Polymer Processing; Wiley: New York, 1998.

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