Prediction of morphology distribution within injection molded parts: Description of fibrils formation

Short processing times and high dimensional accuracy made injection molding a widespread process for polymeric part production. Recently introduced fast cavity heating cycles (FHC) enhance part accuracy at the micrometrical level, duration, and the mechanical properties of the parts. Despite several works devoted to the experimental observations of the effect of FHC on part properties, only a few works focused on the prediction of morphology development during the process. Particularly concerning the formation of fibrils in semicrystalline parts, which mainly determines mechanical properties. The proposed two-steps approach allows predicting fibril formation in the case of a well-characterized polypropylene. The first step describes the process; the second step adopts the outputs of the first one for describing fibril formation. The simulation outputs for temperature, pressure evolutions, and morphology distributions successfully compare with the experimental findings.