Experimental and numerical study of distortion in flat,L‐shaped,and U‐shaped carbon fiber–epoxy composite parts

In this study, flat composite panels were fabricated to find the effect of different manufacturing parameters, including stacking sequence, part thickness, and tooling material, on distortion of carbon fiber‐epoxy composite parts. L‐shaped and U‐shaped panels were also made to investigate the effect of stacking sequence on spring‐in angle and warpage of the curved panels. Results showed that distortion of the flat panels caused by asymmetry in the stacking sequence was an order of magnitude greater than distortion of the panels with an unbalanced stacking sequence; whereas in the curved panels, the panel with an asymmetric stacking sequence showed the least spring‐in angle, and the largest angle was observed in the symmetric panel. MSC Marc was used to predict distortion of the panels, and the simulation results were compared with the experimental results for several stacking sequences of the flat and the L‐shaped panels. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2014 , 131, 40439.     

Multiobjective optimization design of heating system in electric heating rapid thermal cycling mold for yielding high gloss parts

An optimization design method is developed for the electric heating system in rapid thermal cycling molding (RTCM) mold. First, a multiobjective optimization model is established, in which the distance between the mold cavity surface and the center of heating elements and the number and power density of heating elements are the design variables, the required heating time t_h and the highest cavity surface temperature T_max at time t_h are the objective functions. Then, an optimization strategy consisting of design of experiment, finite element analysis, artificial neural network (ANN) and response surface methodology (RSM) models, and Pareto‐based genetic algorithm is proposed to solve the multiobjective optimization model. Finally, the optimization strategy is applied for the design of the heating system for an automotive spoiler blow mold. The results show that the temperature distribution uniformity on the blow mold cavity surface is obviously improved and high heating efficiency is also ensured with the optimized design parameters. Moreover, the ANN model exhibits its superiority over the RSM model in terms of modeling and predictive abilities. A RTCM blow mold with the optimized electric heating system is constructed and successfully utilized to mold high gloss automotive spoiler. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci., 2014 , 131, 39976.     

Offline prediction of process windows for robust injection molding

Process parameters play a highly significant role in the final quality of parts produced using dynamic injection molding. Many researches have made great efforts in obtaining an optimum set of process parameters for improving molded part qualities with various optimization methods. However, this work has failed to provide sufficient information to adjust process parameters in the face of variable environmental conditions and various injection machines to ensure robust, high‐quality injection moldings. Current conditions are too cumbersome and require technologists to perform repeated, detailed optimization procedures on the mass production plant floor. An offline method for prediction of process windows is proposed in this article. The process window is significant for robust manufacturing, and optimization of process parameters. Considering that it is an irregular region in a multi‐dimensional space respecting to process parameters, numerical simulations based on DOE method were designed to offline build relationships between process parameters and part qualities. Then the simulation results were classified as positive or negative class, thereby yielding simulation sample data. Finally, the process window was verified using an SVM classifier and a set of simulation samples. Injection molding of an experimental production plate using various process parameters was conducted to verify the reliability of the predicted process window. The results show that, within tolerable deviations, the predicted window of experimental parts is in accordance with verification experiments. The proposed method demonstrates an ability to rapidly obtain a suitable set of process parameters for achieving consistency in part quality with low cost and high efficiency. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2014 , 131, 40804.     

Numerical simulation on residual thickness of pipes with curved sections in water‐assisted co‐injection molding

The residual thicknesses of the skin and the inner layers are important quality indicators of water‐assisted co‐injection molding (WACIM) process or overflow WACIM (O‐WACIM) parts. At the curved section, the residual thicknesses change significantly. A numerical simulation program based on the computational fluid dynamics method was developed to simulate the O‐WACIM process. After the numerical simulation program was validated with the experimental results, it was used to study the effects of the bending radii and bending angles on the residual thicknesses of the skin and inner layers of O‐WACIM parts. The results showed that the penetration of the inner melt and water was always close to the inner concave side due to the higher local pressure gradient and temperature. The effects of processing parameters on the residual thicknesses of the skin and inner layers were investigated using the orthogonal simulation method. It was found that the residual thicknesses of the skin/inner layer at the inner concave/outer convex side are mainly influenced by different parameters. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2015 , 132, 42468.     

Quality control in the polypropylene manufacturing process: An efficient,data‐driven approach

In the propylene polymerization process, the melt index (MI), as a critical quality variable in determining the product specification, cannot be measured in real time. What we already know is that MI is influenced by a large number of process variables, such as the process temperature, pressure, and level of liquid, and a large amount of their data are routinely recorded by the distributed control system. An alternative data‐driven model was explored to online predict the MI, where the least squares support vector machine was responsible for establishing the complicated nonlinear relationship between the difficult‐to‐measure quality variable MI and those easy‐to‐measure process variables, whereas the independent component analysis and particle swarm optimization technique were structurally integrated into the model to tune the best values of the model parameters. Furthermore, an online correction strategy was specially devised to update the modeling data and adjust the model configuration parameters via adaptive behavior. The effectiveness of the designed data‐driven approach was illustrated by the inference of the MI in a real polypropylene manufacturing plant, and we achieved a root mean square error of 0.0320 and a standard deviation of 0.0288 on the testing dataset. This proved the good prediction accuracy and validity of the proposed data‐driven approach. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2015 , 132, 41312.     

Femtosecond laser ablation of polystyrene: A molecular dynamics study

In this work we perform molecular dynamics simulations to investigate the thermodynamic mechanisms of amorphous polystyrene ablated by a femtosecond laser pulse. The utilized width and fluence of the laser pulse are 10 fs and 10¹² W/cm², respectively. Furthermore, the effect of chain length on the microscopic material removal mechanisms and related macroscopic evolutions of system quantities is studied. Simulations results indicate that the ultra‐short laser pulse irradiation introduces significant instabilities into the target material because of the lattice perturbation, which leads to the relaxation of lattice destabilizations after the pulse through evaporation from the top surface and expansion within the bulk. It is found that the competition between the two mechanisms of evaporation and expansion is strongly influenced by the chain length. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2015 , 132, 42713.     

Research on Payne effect of natural rubber reinforced by graft‐modified silica

Silica (SiO₂) modified by in situ solid‐phase grafting was used for natural rubber (NR) reinforcement. The physical mechanical properties and Payne effect of natural rubber reinforced by SiO₂ and graft‐modified silica (G‐SiO₂) were analyzed systematically. The results showed the comprehensive performance of NR/G‐SiO₂ was better than that of NR/SiO₂. There was a proportional relationship between the filler loading and Payne effect. NR/G‐SiO₂ presented weaker Payne effect in comparison with NR/SiO₂. A qualitative analysis on the correlation of filler 3D network structure and filler loading was carried out according to the relationship between the bound rubber content and the shear modulus. The Payne effect mechanisms of rubber compounds differed according to the different filler loading. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2016 , 133, 43891.     

Effects of the short‐fiber tip geometry and interphase properties on the interfacial debonding behavior of rubber matrix composites

An axisymmetric finite element model of a single fiber embedded in a rubber matrix was established. A cohesive zone model was used for the fiber–matrix interface because of the interfacial failure. The effect of the fiber tip shape on the interfacial debonding of short‐fiber‐reinforced rubber matrix sealing composites (SFRCs) was investigated; the shapes were flat, semi‐elliptical, hemispherical, and conoid, respectively. The initial strain of the interfacial debonding (ε₀) was obtained. We found that among the researched fiber tips, ε₀ of the SFRC reinforced with the hemispherical tip fiber appeared to be the maximum. The initial locations of interfacial debonding were also determined. The results show that the initial locations of the interfacial debonding moved from the edge to the center of the fiber tip when the ratio of the semimajor axis and semiminor axis of the semi‐elliptical fiber tip increased gradually. Further study on the effect of the interphase properties on ε₀ with the hemispherical fiber tip was conducted. The results indicate that an interphase thickness of 0.2 μm and an interphase elastic modulus of about 752 MPa were optimal for restraining the initiation of the interfacial debonding. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2015 , 132, 42774.     

Effects of short fiber tip geometry and inhomogeneous interphase on the stress distribution of rubber matrix sealing composites

The normal and interfacial shear stress distributions with flat fiber tip of short‐fiber‐reinforced rubber matrix sealing composites (SFRC) compared with the shear lag model were investigated by using the finite element method (FEM). The results indicate that stress values do not agree with those calculated by the shear lag model. The effect of different geometrical shapes of fiber tip on the stress distributions of SFRC was also investigated. The geometrical shapes of fiber tip under present investigation are flat, semi‐elliptical, hemispherical, and circular cone, respectively. The results show that the hemispherical fiber tip transfers the load with less stress concentration and is contributed to controlling the interface debonding failure more effectively than other shapes of fiber tip. Further study on the effect of the inhomogeneous interphase properties on the normal and interfacial shear stresses of hemispherical fiber tip was also conducted. The results indicate that the normal stress increases with the increase of the interphase thickness and interfacial shear stress remains unchanged, and the normal stress values of SFRC with interphase are higher than those without interphase. The interphase elastic modulus has no influence on the stress distributions along the direction to the fiber axis. The stress distributions along the radial direction in the interphase end are largely dependent on the interphase elastic modulus, and the interfacial shear stress is larger than the normal stress, which reveals that a significant part of the external load is transferred from the fiber to the matrix through shear stresses within the interphase. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2015 , 132, 41638.     

我国橡胶模具近况及发展动向

介绍了我国橡胶模具，包括非轮胎、非胶鞋制品的压模、压铸模及注射模，还有外胎硫化模和胶鞋模的近况，并对我国橡胶模具的发展动向问题，阐述了作者自己的看法。     

Thermal response of an electric heating rapid heat cycle molding mold and its effect on surface appearance and tensile strength of the molded part

Rapid heat cycle molding (RHCM) is a newly developed injection molding technology in recent years. In this article, a new electric heating RHCM mold is developed for rapid heating and cooling of the cavity surface. A data acquisition system is constructed to evaluate thermal response of the cavity surfaces of the electric heating RHCM mold. Thermal cycling experiments are implemented to investigate cavity surface temperature responses with different heating time and cooling time. According to the experimental results, a mathematical model is developed by regression analysis to predict the highest temperature and the lowest temperature of the cavity surface during thermal cycling of the electric heating RHCM mold. The verification experiments show that the proposed model is very effective for accurate control of the cavity surface temperature. For a more comprehensive analysis of the thermal response and temperature distribution of the cavity surfaces, the numerical‐method‐based finite element analysis (FEA) is used to simulate thermal response of the electric heating RHCM mold during thermal cycling process. The simulated cavity surface temperature response shows a good agreement with the experimental results. Based on simulations, the influence of the power density of the cartridge heaters and the temperature of the cooling water on thermal response of the cavity surface is obtained. Finally, the effect of RHCM process on surface appearance and tensile strength of the part is studied. The results show that the high‐cavity surface temperature during filling stage in RHCM can significantly improve the surface appearance by greatly improving the surface gloss and completely eliminating the weld line and jetting mark. RHCM process can also eliminate the exposing fibers on the part surface for the fiber‐reinforced plastics. For the high‐gloss acrylonitrile butadiene styrene/polymethyl methacrylate (ABS/PMMA) alloy, RHCM process reduces the tensile strength of the part either with or without weld mark. For the fiber‐reinforced plastics of polypropylene (PP) + 20% glass fiber, RHCM process reduces the tensile strength of the part without weld mark but slightly increases the tensile strength of the part with weld mark. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci., 2013     

Phosphorous antioxidants against polypropylene thermal degradation during rotational molding‐kinetic modeling

Phosphorous antioxidants efficiency against molten polypropylene (PP) thermal oxidation was assessed during isothermal ageing and processing by rotational molding. During isothermal ageing, experimental data were compared to the ones calculated on the basis of a kinetic model. Phosphonite is more effective than phosphite. Both phosphite and phosphonite decompose hydroperoxide and prevent initiation of oxidation reactions. However, phosphonite hydrolysis product acts as a radical chain terminator and blocks propagation reactions. Kinetic constants of stabilization reactions were evaluated and discussed. Further, this kinetic modeling was coupled to a thermal software, able to predict polymer temperature evolution during rotational molding and the degradation critical temperature (DCT) of different stabilized PP. A DCT of 235°C was obtained for PP stabilized with phosphonite and hindered phenol against 215°C for PP stabilized with phosphite and the same phenol. This difference of 20°C, corresponding to 5 min more heating is significant to optimize rotational molding. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2015 , 132, 41285.