Investigation of the Melt-Rotation Effects on Fiber Orientation Variation and Geometrical Shrinkage in FRP Injection-Molded Parts
出版日期:2025-08-30 00:00:00
著者:Jing-Kai Gao; Fang-Lin Hsieh; Min-Yuan Chien; Chao-Tsai Huang
著錄名稱、卷期、頁數:Polymers 2025 17(17) ,p. 2360
摘要:The study focuses on the asymmetric shrinkage typically occurring between the upstream
and downstream regions of FRP injection-molded products, a challenge that is particularly
difficult to manage and improve. Specifically, two sets of four-cavity systems in one
mold were utilized as the experimental platform. One set used a balanced runner (BR)
system, and the other used a non-balanced runner (NBR) system. Each cavity in the fourcavity
systems contained an ASTM D638 standard specimen with dimensions of 63.5 mm
× 9.53 mm × 3.5 mm. Both CAE simulation and experimental methods were applied. The
results show that the filling patterns from the simulation analysis closely matched those
from the experimental study for both BR and NBR systems. Furthermore, by comparing
the geometric shrinkage of the injected parts, significant differences were observed in the
dimensional deformation in three directions (x, y, and z) between the NBR and BR systems.
Specifically, at the end of the filling region (EFR), there was no noticeable difference
in shrinkage along the flow direction, but the shrinkage in the cross-flow and thickness
directions was reduced in the NBR system. Additionally, for the same cavity (1C) in both
BR and NBR systems, the melt-rotation effect significantly reduced shrinkage in both the
cross-flow and thickness directions. These findings strongly suggest that melt rotation can
effectively modify the dimensional shrinkage of injection-molded parts. Moreover, fiber
orientation analyses of the 1C cavity were also performed using CAE simulation for both
BR and NBR systems. The results show that in the NBR system, the melt-rotation effect
substantially alters the fiber orientation. Specifically, the fiber orientation tensors in the
cross-flow (A22) direction exhibit a decreasing trend. It can be speculated that the melt
rotation alters the flow field, which subsequently changes the fiber orientation by reducing
the flow-fiber coupling effect, thereby reducing the upstream-to-downstream asymmetry
in the cross-flow direction. Through in-depth analysis, it is demonstrated that the
correlation between the macroscopic geometric shrinkage and the microscopic fiber orientation
changes is highly consistent. Specifically, in the EFR, ΔA22 decreased by 0.0376,
improving upstream/downstream shrinkage asymmetry in the cross-flow direction (Ly).
Future work will investigate alternative melt-rotation designs and the optimization of
model-internal parameters in FOD prediction.
關鍵字:injection molding;fiber reinforced thermoplastics (FRPs);fiber orientation;melt rotation
語言:en
期刊性質:國外
收錄於:SCI
通訊作者:Chao-Tsai Huang
審稿制度:否
國別:CHE
出版型式:電子版