j o u r n a l o f m a t e r i a l s p r o c e s s i n g t e c h n o l o g y 2 0 4 ( 2 0 0 8 ) 17

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jmatprotec

Review

Inuence of injection parameters on the formation of blush

in injection moulding of PVC

J. Llado , B. Sanchez
Department of Mechanical Engineering, CPS, University of Zaragoza, 50018 Zaragoza, Spain

a r t i c l e

i n f o

a b s t r a c t

Article history:

This paper presents results of the study of inuence of injection parameters of PVC ttings

Received 21 September 2007

moulding on the formation of blush. The aim was to determine the cause of the blush and

Received in revised form

predict its evolution in relation to the injection rate and melt temperature, based on Finite

3 December 2007

Element (FE) moulding software. The computation model was tted by means of experimen-

Accepted 16 December 2007

tal tests carried out with a prototype tting mould. Once the cavity pressure was veried,
the analysis of results provided by the software such as the shear stress distribution around
the gate and the ow front temperature enabled the identication of the injection rate as

Keywords:

the principal reason for the aw, the melt temperature being a secondary factor.
2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

PVC
Blush
Injection pressure
Flow rate

Contents
1.
2.

3.
4.

Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Experimental method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
2.1. Material and part geometry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
2.2. Pressure sensors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
2.3. Injection machine and injection parameters. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Injection modelling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Results and discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
4.1. Experimental results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
4.2. Numerical results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
4.3. Comparison of experimental and theoretical results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
4.3.1. Pressure analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
4.3.2. Flow front temperature. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
4.3.3. Shear stress . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Corresponding author.

E-mail address: juan.llado@unizar.es (J. Llado).

0924-0136/$ see front matter 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.jmatprotec.2007.12.063

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5.

1.

Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Acknowledgement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Introduction

Polyvinyl chloride (PVC) is most commonly used in the construction sector because of its excellent weather, chemical
and ame resistance properties. In recent years, its use has
been growing in specialty injection moulding markets such
as domestic appliances, business machines, medical devices
and consumer electronics. Despite its advantageous properties, the injection of PVC is regarded as troublesome by some
moulders (Gruber and Gockowski, 1992), because this material often decomposes and burns during processing, releasing
hydrochloric acid, which rusts the equipment; in addition,
surface defects can appear. To overcome the perception of
the difcult injection of this material, the processability of
PVC compounds has been improved by development of highow (low-viscosity) PVC grades through the use of acrylic
processing aids. These aids promote PVC fusion, modify the
melt rheology and/or provide lubrication. Some processing aid
products are designed to serve one of these functions while
others provide a combination of functions (Stevenson and
Einhorn, 1993; Disson and Girois, 2003). Furthermore, significant advances have also been made in processing equipment
and conditions. Previous experiments have also indicated that
the study of processing parameters is very important because
just setting them correctly covers about 90% of the problems
encountered in PVC injection, such as degradation (Garcia et
al., 2004a) or surface defects (Weir, 1994).
Companies always strive to produce high-quality parts
while lowering their costs; however, signicant time delays
and increasing costs may occur if part design is not carefully
evaluated or the injection process is not completely understood. The factors involved in the injection moulding process
that have a great inuence on the nal quality of plastic
products can be classied into the following four categories:
materials, moulding machine, model design and processing
conditions (Min, 2003). Each factor, accurately chosen and controlled, requires a multi-disciplinary knowledge to improve
and optimize the nal product, but the process of lling a cavity mould with a plastic melt is complex due to signicant
interactions between variables, and this requires particular
attention when setting up the machine.
Injection moulding software packages are widely used to
analyse product performance and processability and represent a powerful tool to evaluate the moulding conditions with
a high level of detail because they provide a lot of predicted
data that are not normally available during experimental tests
(Spina, 2004). A thorough analysis of the numerical results
enables potential problems in product injection to be identied and resolved by proposal of a new set of process variables
that improve the part quality, although huge amounts of
computer-generated data and complex nonlinear interactions
between all process variables frequently make the selection
of the optimal design and process parameters very difcult
(Turng and Peic, 2002).

7
7
7

This work refers to an industrial problem, that is, the blush

that appears around the gate in the injection of PVC ttings.
The target was to determine the cause of the blush and predict the evolution of this aw in relation to the injection rate
and melt temperature, using Moldow numerical simulation
software. To adjust the computation model, a prototype tting
mould was designed and experimental tests were performed,
where the pressure inside the sprue bushing is controlled. The
pressure data obtained during the injection trials were used
to obtain the viscosity curves to be applied in the numerical
simulation.

2.

Experimental method

2.1.

Material and part geometry

The material used in this work was provided by Solvay. The

PVC compound injected was Benvic IR705, a standard material used for the injection of PVC ttings. This study is directed
towards understanding the industrial problem of the blush
around the gate during injection moulding of PVC ttings.
These parts are cylindrical and usually have a centre sprue
gate from which a radial ow goes through the cavity. It was
decided to design a centre-gated semicylinder, as shown in
the mould in Fig. 1; this is easier to eject and mimics the
radial ow produced on the ttings. The dimensions of the
part were chosen by the company Pipelife Hispania S.A., which
was interested in studying this problem. The thickness chosen
was 8 mm, the width 200 mm, and the length 200 mm. The
sprue was 70 mm long, with an inlet diameter of 6 mm and
the angle of the conical section was 3 .

2.2.

Pressure sensors

For a better understanding and control of the injection process, it is important to understand the evolution of some
variables that can be checked with the results provided by
injection moulding packages. The plastic pressure in the
mould and the melt temperature are the two variables. At
present, there are no techniques available to measure the
actual melt temperature prole in the cavity without affecting the ow (Garcia et al., 2004b). A previous attempt was
made by the authors to measure the melt temperature with
an infrared sensor, mounted at the same level as the mould
wall, but this sensor was not able to measure the maximum
melt temperature in the central layer of the ow, and it only
provided the evolution of the temperature near the mould
wall, where there was a temperature gradient. So, experimentally, the thermal degradation of the PVC is difcult to
determine.
In this work, to ensure the quality of PVC injected parts, the
quantitative assessment of cavity pressure history is obtained
using two Kistler 6157BSP0 quartz sensors placed at locations

j o u r n a l o f m a t e r i a l s p r o c e s s i n g t e c h n o l o g y 2 0 4 ( 2 0 0 8 ) 17

Fig. 1 Cavity mould.

P1 and P2 in the sprue bushing (Fig. 2). The lower part of the
sprue bushing is rectangular to avoid the relative rotation of
this element that could preload the sensors when the nozzle leans against the mould. The voltage provided by both
sensors is amplied and transmitted through an Adaptor DAS16 multi-channel acquisition system to a PC (Fig. 3), where
the data are registered by means of DFPLUS software, where
some values must be supplied such as the number of injection cycles, the number of values recorded per second and the
amplier features.

2.3.

Injection machine and injection parameters

The injection moulding trials were performed at Pipelife Hispanias facilities, with a Cincinnati Milacron 250 injection
moulding machine, specic for PVC injection, with maximum

values of clamp force, injection pressure and velocity equal to

153 kN, 1400 kg/cm2 and 368 cm3 /s, respectively.
The processing conditions evaluated were the injection
speed and the melt temperature. Two melt temperatures were
selected in the range recommended for this material, 205 C
and 195 C, measured with a portable infrared thermometer
when the material left the nozzle. Fig. 4 shows the cylinder
and nozzle temperatures corresponding to each case. Initial
tests were carried out to determine the injection speeds at
each temperature. The selection of the injection speeds was
based on the fact that they were within the usual range of ow
rates used in the injection of PVC ttings, and that the material was not burned at the highest injection rate. At 205 C melt
temperature, injection trials were performed at injection rates
of 30, 25, 22, 20, 18 and 15%, which means a ow rate ranging
from 113 to 20 cm3 /s. In the case of 195 C, the injection rates

Fig. 2 Location of pressure sensors.

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Fig. 3 Measurement chain.

Fig. 5 Part mesh.

As in the experimental injection trials, eleven simulations

were performed using the same melt temperatures, injection
rates and packing conditions.

Fig. 4 Cylinder and nozzle temperatures.

were 25, 22, 20, 18 and 16%, which correspond to a ow rate

range between 70 and 19 cm3 /s. After the lling stage, to avoid
sink marks, all parts were packed during 5 s, with a packing
pressure equal to 80 bar.
Five parts were injected at each injection velocity, and
every pressure prole registered by both pressure sensors was
recorded in each test.

3.

Injection modelling

4.

Results and discussion

4.1.

Experimental results

For both temperatures and all injection rates, the pressure proles recorded by both sensors are qualitatively similar. As an
example, Fig. 7 shows a typical pressure prole measured by
both sensors during the injection of the part at 195 C and 25%
injection rate. As soon as the ow front reaches the sensor,
measurement starts and two stages can be observed. Initially,
during the lling of the sprue, the curve rises sharply due to the
large drop in pressure. Then the second step corresponds to
the lling of the part, where pressure increases slightly since
the part is thick and it does not offer too much resistance to
be lled. Finally, the beginning of the packing phase can be
seen where the pressure increases sharply again. If all records
are analysed, it is observed that the maximum pressure at the

Moldow FEM software has been used to simulate the injection trials. First, the part was meshed, as shown in Fig. 5. The
sprue was modelled using 7 cold runner elements that fed a
semicylindrical cavity of 276 shell triangular elements.
The properties of the PVC Benvic IR705 are listed in Table 1,
and the critical shear rate and degradation temperature are
about 0.2 MPa and 215 C, respectively. Fig. 6 shows the viscosity plotted against the shear rate, at different temperatures,
provided by the material supplier.

Table 1 Properties of the PVC Solvay Benvic

Property

Value
3

Density (kg/dm )
Conductivity (W m1 C1 )
Glass transition temperature ( C)
Specic heat (J kg1 C1 )
Shrinkage (%)

1.32
0.13
7980
1767
0.6

Fig. 6 Viscosity data.

j o u r n a l o f m a t e r i a l s p r o c e s s i n g t e c h n o l o g y 2 0 4 ( 2 0 0 8 ) 17

Fig. 7 Experimental and numerical pressure evolution at

195 C and 25% injection rate.

end of the lling stage is higher at 195 C than at 205 C, and

that pressure increases as injection rate increases.
In addition to the pressure records, the parts injected in
each test were examined to observe the evolution of the cosmetics of the part. Inspection of the samples showed the
appearance of a circular white mark around the gate. For both
melt temperatures, the largest defect appears at the highest
injection rate and the blush diminishes as the injection rate
decreases and the melt temperature is higher. The aw mainly
depends on the injection rate, the melt temperature being a
secondary factor. So the shear produced at high injection rates
seems to be the main reason for the blush. The inuence of
thermal degradation will be determined by means of injection
simulation.

4.2.

Numerical results

Initial simulations performed with the rheological characteristics provided by the material supplier, showed a difference of
about 30% between the experimental and theoretical pressure
data at the end of the lling stage. The reliability of the numerical simulation depends mainly on the rheological data of the
PVC. Therefore, to characterise the behaviour of the polymer
during injections at 195 C and 205 C, the maximum pressure
values recorded by both sensors at the end of the lling of
the sprue have been used to calculate the viscosity function
according to Poiseuilles law, as Eq. (1) states:
=

4r4
P
8QL

(1)

where  (Pa s) is the viscosity, r (m) and L (m) are the average
radius of the sprue and the distance between both sensors,
respectively, Q (m3 /s) is the ow rate and P (Pa) is the drop
in pressure. The adjustment of the viscosity curves at 195 C
and 205 C is performed by tting a potential function to the
experimental values obtained with Eq. (1). If these two experimental viscosity curves are compared with the rheological
data of the PVC obtained by means of a rheometer (Fig. 8),
it can be observed that the viscosity data at 195 C coincide

Fig. 8 Viscosity data comparison.

with the 200 C viscosity curve. This discrepancy can result

from the fact that the method performed with the rheometer is much more controlled than the injection tests where
the control of the melt temperature is not so precise, because
machine variables such as barrel temperature, back pressure,
screw RPM, screw geometry, clearance between the screw and
the barrel, all affect the melt temperature. As a consequence,
to correlate the information recorded during the injection of
the PVC prototype parts with the numerical results from the
FEM injection software, it has been considered convenient to
perform the numerical simulations using the viscosity curves
determined from the injection tests.
Pressure evolution at 195 C and 25% injection rate,
obtained with the experimental rheological curves, is shown
in Fig. 7. The behaviour of this variable is the same as in the
experiment, and the lling of the sprue and the cavity part can
also be distinguished. The best agreement between the experimental and numerical pressure data is achieved at the end of
the lling stage.
With regard to the shear stress, if this variable is higher
than its critical value of 0.2 MPa, the material degrades and this
is reected in the poor surface cosmetics (Serrano et al., 1995).
At 195 C and 25% injection rate, Fig. 9 shows the distribution
of the shear stress, where a circular, degraded zone appears
around the gate due to the shear after the critical value has
been reached.

4.3.
Comparison of experimental and theoretical
results
The correlation between the theoretical and experimental
results enables the reliability of the PVC tting numerical
model to be checked. This integration is made through comparison of the pressure at both sensor locations, and once the
cavity pressure has been veried, the analysis of the shear
stress zone around the gate and the ow front temperature in
the central layer will enable the causes of the blush to be identied and determine the inuence of the injection parameters
on that defect.

j o u r n a l o f m a t e r i a l s p r o c e s s i n g t e c h n o l o g y 2 0 4 ( 2 0 0 8 ) 17

Fig. 11 Maximum pressure evolution at 195 C.

Fig. 9 Shear stress distribution around the gate.

model will be used to analyse the shear stress and ow front

temperature results provided by the software.

4.3.2.

Fig. 10 Maximum pressure evolution at 205 C.

4.3.1.

Pressure analysis

Figs. 10 and 11 show the evolution of the maximum pressure

values at the end of the lling stage for both melt temperatures. The same qualitative behaviour of the experimental
and numerical results can be observed. The quantitative difference is in the range 716% for both sensors at 205 C, and
in the ranges 811% and 917% for pressures 1 and 2, respectively, at 195 C. Thus, cavity pressure measurements in the
sprue bushing have provided effective control of the injection process and a good agreement between numerical and
experimental results has been achieved. The computational

Flow front temperature

To determine if the blush can be produced by thermal degradation, the numerical temperature results obtained by Moldow
FEM software in the zone around the gate were analysed.
Table 2 shows the maximum values in the central layer for
all injection simulations.
The theoretical results are higher than their respective
injection melt temperatures and this indicates that when the
material ows along the mould, its temperature increases due
to shear, this effect being more important at 195 C as the viscosity function at this temperature is higher. It is interesting to
note that the injection speed is a signicant parameter since it
turns out that the maximum temperature depends on it. During injection, the maximum temperature in the melt varies
slightly for both inlet temperatures, and in any case, the maximum value exceeds the degradation temperature of 215 C
therefore, the blush is not produced by thermal degradation.

4.3.3.

Shear stress

The blush at the gate can be predicted by the FE simulation

through the shear stress. If the value of this variable is higher
than the critical shear stress then the material is degraded
and a white mark can be seen around the gate. Due to the circular shape of the defect, Figs. 12 and 13 show the diameter
of the blush of the injected parts compared with the diameter of the shear stress zone where the value is higher than
the critical value. For both melt temperatures, one can clearly

Table 2 Maximum ow front temperature calculated using Moldow

205 C

195 C

Injection rate (%)

Max. temperature ( C)

Injection rate (%)

Max. temperature ( C)

30
25
22
20
18
15

212.2
211.6
211.0
210.5
209.5
208.6

25
22
20
18
16

203.2
202.7
202.0
201.1
199.4

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mine which process conditions are most suitable to remove

this aw.
1. Results provided by computer simulation show that shearinduced degradation is responsible for the aw, and that
there is no thermal degradation.
2. The blush shows a strong dependence on the injection rate
and decreases as the injection rate decreases.
3. Melt temperature can be considered as a secondary factor although higher melt temperatures are more suitable
because the shear-induced degradation is lower than that
at lower temperatures.
4. The simulation model can be used to analyse the effect of
other dimensions of the sprue on the blush and to reduce
the number of injection trials.
Fig. 12 Blush diameter comparison at 205 C.

Acknowledgement
The authors would like to thank Pipelife Hispania S.A. for
experimental support in performing the injection tests.

references

Fig. 13 Blush diameter comparison at 195 C.

see that the blush has a strong dependence on the injection

rate, and that the size of defect diminishes as the injection
rate decreases. At 195 C, the size of the blush is larger, and
this fact is more noticeable in the FE prediction than in the
experimental injection however, the dependence on melt temperature is not signicant. In addition, the blush at the gate
and the shear stress above the critical value disappear at the
same injection rate. It has virtually disappeared at 18% injection rate and 205 C, and the blush totally disappears at 16%
injection rate and 195 C. Thus, the shear produced at high
injection rates is the main reason for the blush, and injection
at higher temperature diminishes the surface defect.

5.

Conclusions

Integration of computer simulation and injection trial results

allowed the cause of the blush to be dened and to deter-

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