Simulation of injection-compression molding process, part 3: Effect of process conditions on part birefringence

Simulations of the injection-compression molding (ICM) process based on a Leonov viscoelastic fluid model has been employed to study the effects of processing conditions on the birefringence development and distribution in injection-compression molded parts. A numerical algorithm combined with a modified control-volume/finite-element method is developed to predict the melt front advancement and the distributions of pressure, temperature, and flow velocity dynamically during the injection melt-filling, compression melt-filling, and postfilling stages of the entire process. Part birefringence was then calculated from residual stresses following the thermal-mechanical history of the entire molding process. Simulations of a disk part under different process conditions including compression speed, switch time from injection to compression, compression stroke, packing pressure, and postfilling time were performed to understand their effects on birefringence variation. The simulated results were also compared with those required by conventional injection molding (CIM). It has been found that an ICM part shows a significant reduction of part birefringence near the gate area as compared with CIM parts. However, ICM parts exhibit higher birefringence values near the rim of the disk. The minimum birefringence occurs around the location where injection is switched over to compression. Although longer postfilling time and higher packing pressure result in higher birefringence values, their effects are not very significant. On the other hand, higher compression speed, larger compression stroke, and shorter switch time exhibit greater effects on the increase of part birefringence. Flow-induced residual stress is the major origin of birefringence formation in the present case. The simulated birefringence for both ICM and CIM parts show good coincidence with those obtained from measurements by using a digital photoelasticity technique. (C) 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.