Residual thermal stresses in injection moldings of thermoplastics: A theoretical and experimental study

Internal stresses in injection molded components, a principal cause of shrinkage and warpage, are predicted using a three-dimensional numerical simulation of the residual stress development in moldings of polystyrene and high-density polyethylene. These residual stresses are mainly frozen-in thermal stresses due to inhomogeneous cooling, when surface layers stiffen sooner than the core region as in free quenching. Additional factors in injection molding are the effects of melt pressure history and mechanical restraints of the mold. Transient temperature and pressure fields from simulation of the injection molding cycle are used for calculating the developing normal stress distributions. Theoretical predictions are compared with measurements performed on injection molded flat plates using the layer removal method on rectangular specimens. The thermal stress development in the thin-walled moldings is analyzed using models that assume linear thermo-elastic and linear thermo-viscoelastic compressible behavior of the polymeric materials. Polymer crystallization effects on stresses are examined. Stresses are obtained implicitly using displacement formulations, and the governing equations are solved numerically using a finite element method. Results show that residual stress behavior can be represented reasonably well for both the amorphous and the semicrystalline polymer. Similarities in behavior between theory and experiment indicate that both material models provide satisfactory results, but the best predictions of large stresses developed at the wall surface are obtained with the thermo-viscoelastic analysis.

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