Effect of Dissolved Gas on the Viscosity of HIPS in the Manufacture of Microcellular Plastics

Abstract

The microcellular plastics (MCPs) process is a foaming process that has been developed to reduce the weight of a product without significant changes to the mechanical properties. To apply microcellular plastics to mass production systems such as extrusion, injection molding, and blow molding, research must be done on material properties, such as viscosity, glass transition temperature, and melt index of polymer resin. Among the properties, it is critical to predict the change in viscosity with the amount of inert gas, which can be an index of the injection molding working condition of polymer resin. The purpose of this paper is to study the relationship between the amount of dissolved gas and the viscosity of high impact polystyrene (HIPS) resin in extrusion. The experiment was carried out with newly designed gas supply equipment and with a screw and die modified for MCPs. In addition, a pressure gauge was set up on the end of a barrel for measuring the pressure change. The experiment has shown that the viscosity of polymer decreases with increasing amounts of inert gas. A new model was applied to estimate the viscosity change as a function of the amount of dissolved gas.