Dispersed Phase Deformation Modeling of Immiscible Polymer Blends in Injection Molding

Abstract

ABSTRACTNumerical prediction of morphology in polymer blends during injection molding is of vital importance for mastering the material microstructure and optimizing the property of molded parts, in which modeling the morphological evolution in processing is the premise. The principle and crucial factors of the deformation of dispersed phases have been investigated in this paper, followed by introducing six deformation models (MM, JT, YB, affine model, shear model, and Cox models) systematically. Simulation results of these models under five typical flows (steady deformation in simple shear flow, transient deformation in simple shear flow, relaxation after step shearing, shearing reversion, and droplet broadening) are compared and evaluated. It shows that the MM model can be chosen for modeling the steady deformation or small deformation process in the injection molding, and the affine model is highly feasible for the transient large deformation in the high shearing process of injection molding. Finally, the selected models are used in the injection molding simulation for verification.