Sensors and Actuators A 182 (2012) 1627

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Sensors and Actuators A: Physical

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A review and evaluation of melt temperature sensors for polymer extrusion

Chamil Abeykoon a, , Peter J. Martin a , Adrian L. Kelly b , Elaine C. Brown b
a
School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Queens University Belfast, Belfast, BT9 5AH, UK
b
IRC in Polymer Science and Technology, School of Engineering, Design and Technology, University of Bradford, Bradford, BD7 1DP, UK

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Melt temperature is one of the key variables in polymer extrusion which determines process thermal
Received 24 December 2011 stability and hence melt quality. Therefore, melt temperature is commonly measured in polymer pro-
Received in revised form 19 April 2012 cessing and point/bulk melt temperature measurement methods are widely used in the present industry.
Accepted 20 April 2012
Some thermal prole measurement methods have also been attempted in research. This study presents a
Available online 27 April 2012
review of melt temperature measurements in polymer extrusion in research and industry, and describes
the results of an experimental evaluation carried out to explore the performance of ve melt tempera-
Keywords:
ture measurement techniques. In addition, an investigation was carried out on the fully developed melt
Polymer extrusion
Process monitoring
temperature prole of a cylindrical rod die. Moreover, the existing challenges and possible future appli-
Melt temperature sensor cations for extrusion thermal monitoring are discussed. The results conrmed that melt temperature
Melt temperature prole varied signicantly at different radial locations within the die. Point/bulk melt temperature measure-
Frequency analysis ments were found to provide relatively limited information on process thermal quality close to the die
wall. Hence, information provided by these sensors is less representative of actual thermal conditions as
they are unable to capture thermal information from the whole melt ow cross-section. Therefore, the
importance of the development of industrially compatible thermal prole measurement techniques is
emphasised.
2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction 1.1. Polymer extrusion

Polymers are among the most important materials available to Different types of polymer processing extruders are available in
manufacturing industry. Many conventional raw materials such as industry: single/multi screw extruders, disk/drum extruders, etc.
steel, glass and wood are being replaced by various types of polymer Of these extruders, single screw continuous extruders are the most
materials or polymer composites which perform the same function commonly used in the plastics industry [1]. The basic components
while offering a number of other advantages. Some of the attractive of a single screw extruder are shown in Fig. 1. The screw is the
properties of polymeric materials are ease of forming into complex key component of extrusion machines and can be divided into
shapes; high strength to weight ratio; high temperature resistance; three main functional/geometrical zones (i.e. feed or solids con-
high chemical resistance; high clarity; re-processability; low cost; veying, compression or melting, and metering or melt conveying)
etc. Extrusion is the most fundamental method in polymeric mate-
rial processing and it is involved in the production of commodities
in diverse industrial sectors such as packaging; household; auto-
motive; aerospace; marine; construction; electrical and electronic;
and medical applications. However, effective thermal monitoring
and control still remains an issue despite the signicant develop-
ments to the process that have been introduced over the last few
decades.

Corresponding author. Tel.: +44 2890974236.

E-mail address: yabeykoon01@qub.ac.uk (C. Abeykoon). Fig. 1. The basic components of a single screw extruder.

0924-4247/$ see front matter 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.sna.2012.04.026
 C. Abeykoon et al. / Sensors and Actuators A 182 (2012) 1627
in the case of simple, single ighted screw geometries based on its
primary operations. The feedstock material fed into the machine
through the hopper is conveyed along the screw while absorbing
heat provided by the barrel heaters and through process mechan-
ical work. Eventually, a molten ow of material is forced into the
die which forms the material into the desired shape. More details
of the mechanisms of polymer extrusion can be found in literature
[2].
Process monitoring is crucial to maintain product quality in
polymer extrusion. Among the process variables, melt temperature
is one of the most important variables which have to be main-
tained very carefully. It is essential to ensure that the polymer is not
degraded or overheated during processing [3]. The nal melt output
from the machine should be homogeneous in colour, composition
and temperature to produce a good quality product. Therefore, melt
temperature is one of the most commonly measured parameters in
polymer extrusion and several measurement methods are available
in the present industry/research. Of these, some methods can only
provide point/bulk melt temperature measurements while other
methods can offer thermal prole measurements.
The aim of the rst part of this study was to carry out a review
of previously attempted work on extrusion melt temperature mea-
surements. In the second part, an experimental evaluation of ve
melt temperature sensors was carried out to explore their perfor-
mance in presenting actual process thermal stability. A frequency
analysis of each sensor signal was carried out to identify the crit-
ical frequencies of thermal uctuations. Also the fully developed
melt temperature proles were investigated in an adaptor prior to
entrance into a rod die at different screw rotation speeds. Finally,
the existing problems and challenges in polymer extrusion ther-
mal monitoring are discussed. A single screw extruder was used in
the experiments as it is the most commonly used type in industrial
polymer extrusion.
2. Review of previous attempts to monitor melt
temperature
2.1. Point/bulk melt temperature measurements
An early study made by Maddock [4] used wall mounted ther-
mocouples to monitor extrusion melt temperature under different
processing conditions and the product quality was dened in terms
of melt temperature and pressure uniformity. Later, a number of
studies were carried out to observe the extrusion melt temper-
ature by using wall mounted thermocouples [3,5,6]. In most of
these studies, melt temperature measurements were taken from
the thermocouples xed at the end of the extruder barrel or at the
die.
Infrared (IR) sensors are a less commonly used melt temperature
measurement method in the present industry. A few IR temper-
ature measurement devices are commercially available such as
wall mounted IR probes (which make measurements in-contact
with the polymer melt) and non-contact temperature measuring
devices such as hand held IR pyrometers and IR thermal cameras.
The principles of operation of all of these sensors are based on
the emitted IR energy from the polymer melt but nal temper-
ature is derived using different concepts and the output may be
displayed in different forms (e.g. a value, a thermal image/map).
Several attempts have been made to monitor extrusion bulk melt
temperature from IR wall mounted probes [3,713]. It has been
found that IR sensors can detect rapid variations (response time
is around 10 ms) in melt temperature better than the typical wall
mounted thermocouples. However, IR signal penetration depth is
affected by material properties such as melt emissivity and these
affect the sensor performance [8,12,13]. Bendada and Lamontagne
17
[14] developed a non-contact IR pyrometer for temperature moni-
toring in a microbre-extrusion process and achieved satisfactory
results. Steward [6] used a hand held IR pyrometer to measure
extrusion melt temperature and argued that the pyrometer elim-
inates the shear heating effect and gives a more reasonable melt
temperature value, but does not capture temperature variations.
Christie [15] used a non-contact IR thermal imager to measure
the extrudate temperature in an extrusion coating process. A spe-
cial device was developed to scan and measure temperature eld
across the melt curtain. No conclusions were drawn relating to pro-
cess melting stability using this technique. Another study [16] used
a thermal imaging system for micromoulding process monitoring
and improvements to the device are underway to measure polymer
melt surface temperatures.
Noriega et al. [17,18] proposed a non-invasive measuring tech-
nique to capture experimental data and images inside the extruder
through a small quartz window and a rigid boroscope with a
fast response time. A 45 mm diameter single screw extruder was
used for the experiments and the authors claimed that the cap-
tured images allowed study of the melting, material conveying
and behaviour of the solid bed and melt pool including solid bed
breakup information. They observed that the formation of the melt
pool was delayed for a few turns as melting progresses due to the
fact that before a melt pool forms, the melt lls the gaps between
the granules. Modications to the widely accepted Tadmor melt-
ing model [19] were proposed based on this observed delay and
good agreement was found between the modied model and exper-
imental results. The authors claimed that this was a good method
to monitor process thermal behaviour without disturbing the melt
ow.
Other work has been reported on ultrasonic melt tempera-
ture measurements in extrusion [2022]. Wen et al. [23] used an
ultrasonic sensor to measure the surface temperature of extruded
polymer and found that the sensor had a faster response time than
conventional wall mounted thermocouples. Muller et al. [24] pro-
posed a new ultrasonic probe for in-line monitoring of polymer
melts and measured ultrasonic attenuation spectra experimen-
tally with different types of polymer processes. Another study
[25,26] used ultrasonic techniques to measure real-time melt tem-
perature in extrusion and claimed that the ultrasonic technique
provided a sensitive indication of the melting process and material
variability. Kelly et al. [11,13] made ultrasonic melt temperature
measurements and compared them to an IR temperature sensor
measurement and an average thermocouple mesh temperature
where good agreement was achieved.
Bur et al. [27] used a uorescence technique to measure the bulk
melt temperature of a 19 mm diameter single screw extruder. A u-
orescence sensor, an IR sensor and a wall mounted thermocouple
were placed on the extruder barrel wall in the same plane near the
screw tip. Temperatures from the three sensors were recorded by
applying screw speed step changes and it was claimed that mea-
surements made by the uorescence and IR sensors were in good
agreement with a difference of less than 3 C over the measure-
ment period. However, the thermocouple showed a large lag from
the measured IR and uorescence measurements.
Recently, an attempt was made to use a nuclear magnetic reso-
nance (NMR) technique to monitor the extrusion melt temperature
[28]. The authors argued that this technique can be used to deter-
mine the melt ow composition and homogeneity in addition to
the melt temperature. However, signicant research and develop-
ment will be required before applying this technique in industrial
process measurements.
Work by the present authors [29,30] reported an attempt to
predict process thermal stability inferentially. The correlations
between screw load torque, melt pressure and melt temperature
uctuations were examined by analysing experimentally measured
18 C. Abeykoon et al. / Sensors and Actuators A 182 (2012) 1627
signals. However, no strong correlations between these signals
could be observed. It was found that as the screw load torque sig-
nal is dominated by the solids conveying torque it is not sensitive
enough to identify unstable melting issues. Pressure uctuations
had slight correlations with melt temperature uctuations partic-
ularly at low screw speeds. However, none of these signals showed
sufciently good performance for them to be used as a powerful
tool of monitoring the process thermal stability inferentially.
Obviously, the majority of commercially available melt tem-
perature sensors for polymer extrusion are based on point/bulk
measurements and hence are the most common in the present
industry. Of these techniques, wall mounted thermocouples (i.e.
based on the thermoelectric effect) are the most commonly used.
However, typical wall mounted thermocouples are highly affected
by the barrel metal wall temperature and also they are slow in
response time (typically around 1 s or greater) [2,3,31]. Also, IR
and ultrasonic thermal monitoring techniques are commercially
available and used by some producers in the polymer industry.
Moreover, resistance temperature detectors (RTD) are commer-
cially available and mostly these are made out of platinum and
known as platinum resistance thermometers (PRT). Normally, a
PRT is used where very precise measurements are required and/or
where high temperatures are involved [2]. However, a PRT also pro-
vides a point measurement only. In fact, there are no currently
available established techniques to measure thermal proles in
industry.
2.2. Temperature prole measurements
Work presented by Schlaffer and Janeschitz-Kriegl [32] used
thermocouples mounted on a radially movable bar to measure
the melt temperature prole just in front of the screw tip of a
30 mm diameter single screw extruder. The lowest temperature
was observed close to the barrel wall and the temperature prole
appeared to be symmetrical around the barrel centreline. The high-
est temperature was observed around 7.5 mm distance from the
barrel centreline. The temperature of the middle of the melt ow
was slightly lower than the highest temperature observed and this
difference increased as the screw speed increased.
An up-stream temperature sensor [33,34] was used to mea-
sure the melt temperature at a number of different radial positions
across the melt ow. A detailed description of the probe design was
provided while the probe was used to measure the radial temper-
ature prole with a few different materials. The shapes of the melt
temperature proles varied with the material. The authors stated
that further development of the probe was required before its use
in industrial applications.
Bruker et al. [35] measured the radial melt temperature distri-
bution of a 63.5 mm diameter single screw extruder at the end of
the screw by using a ring/bar mechanism. Ten thermocouples were
mounted on the system in the radial direction opposite to the melt
ow. The lowest and almost identical melt ow temperatures were
observed in the middle of the melt ow and in the melt close to the
barrel wall. The highest melt temperature was observed around the
middle of the melt ow in-between the barrel centre and wall.
Miaw et al. [36] used a device consisting of a bar with thermo-
couple probes facing upstream to measure the melt temperature
prole of a 63.5 mm diameter single screw extruder just after the
screw tip. A roughly symmetrical temperature prole was observed
around the melt ow centreline. The highest and the lowest melt
temperatures were observed in the centre of the melt ow and
the melt close to the barrel wall respectively. The atness of the
temperature proles decreased as the screw speed increased.
A cam-driven thermocouple system was used to measure the
radial temperature distribution along the centreline of a single
screw extruder screw channel [37]. The effects of barrel cooling
and viscous dissipation were observed on the temperature prole.
The authors mentioned that high screw speeds were not achieved
due to system limitations and hence further developments to the
measurement system were required before use in industrial appli-
cations.
Rasid and Wood [38] used a thermocouple mesh in-between
the screw tip and the die to measure the melt ow temperature
prole with a low density polyethylene. Tests were carried out to
investigate the effects of individual process settings on the melt
temperature and found that of the barrel temperature settings, the
metering zone temperature had the highest inuence on the melt
temperature whereas the melting zone and die temperatures had
negligible effects. However, they did not observe a symmetrical
temperature prole around the centre of the melt ow, which was
later attributed to an alignment problem of the apparatus.
Kelly et al. [3942] used a thermocouple mesh to monitor
the melt temperature prole and presented a number of com-
prehensive studies on factors inuencing the melt temperature
homogeneity other than the process settings. The mesh was placed
across the melt ow at the screw tip or in-between the adapter and
die. They observed that a maximum temperature exists at the cen-
tre of the melt ow and the melt temperature prole varied across
the melt depending on the proximity to the screw root, barrel wall
or melt pool. The extruder screw geometry and polymer properties
were found to be the most signicant parameters.
Previous work by the authors [29,43,44] examined the effects of
screw speed and barrel temperatures on the die melt temperature
prole. A thermocouple mesh was used to measure the temper-
ature prole of the melt ow prior to die entry (a 174 mm long
adapter was placed in-between screw tip and the die). It was found
that temperature variations increased as the screw speed increased
and that the highest uctuations existed a few millimetres away
from the die wall, particularly at high screw speeds. Barrel tem-
perature changes were also shown to inuence the prole, but to a
lesser effect.
In another study by Kelly et al. [45], a traversing thermocouple
was used to measure the melt temperature prole, and this gave
similar measurements to the thermocouple mesh at the centre of
the melt ow, but measured lower temperatures close to the die
wall. It was felt that these lower observed temperatures were due to
conduction errors and insufcient time to reach equilibrium at each
position. Sabota et al. [10] used a Dynisco auto traversing probe to
monitor the radial melt temperature prole of a 50 mm diameter
single screw extruder. The lowest and highest melt temperatures
were observed at the melt close to the wall and middle of the ow
respectively. Moreover, melt temperature proles were shifted up
from the level of temperature as screw speed increased. In other
work reported by Shen et al. [3], the die melt temperature prole of
a 50.8 mm diameter single screw extruder was observed by using an
auto-traversing probe. They found that the temperature prole was
highly affected by processing conditions and material properties
such as screw speed or output, barrel set temperatures, die wall set
temperatures, material viscosity, etc. Moreover, they found that the
radial temperature prole was more signicantly inuenced by the
set die wall temperature at low screw speeds than the high screw
speeds.
Bur et al. [27] used a non-invasive uorescent measurement
technique to measure the vertical temperature prole across the
melt ow inside the extruder barrel (i.e. the screw root to barrel
wall) and discussed the effects of screw speed, screw geometry
and material specic behaviour on the melt temperature prole.
They observed quite a at vertical temperature prole at low screw
speeds with a conventional screw. The conventional screw temper-
ature prole became curvilinear as the screw speed increased since
the melt temperature at the middle of the melt ow was lower
than the melt temperatures close to the screw root and the barrel
 C. Abeykoon et al. / Sensors and Actuators A 182 (2012) 1627 19

wall. There were distinct differences in temperature prole shapes

between a mixing screw and the conventional screw. The lowest
temperature was observed in the melt near the barrel wall with
the mixing screw rather than the middle of the melt ow.
Schoppner et al. [31] used an IR thermometer with a 10 ms
response time to measure the melt temperature prole across the
screw channel at different locations of the screw. The solids convey-
ing zone melt temperature prole showed a maximum peak close
to the passive ight (i.e. in the melt pool area) and the minimum
peak close to the active ight (i.e. in the solid bed area) while the
metering zone channel prole showed the opposite order of peaks Fig. 2. Details of the rapid compression screw.
at low screw speeds (10 and 15 rpm). However, no signicant dif-
ferences in the patterns of the temperature traces at high screw
speeds were observed other than the magnitude differences.
A non-invasive electrical capacitance tomography (ECT) tech-
nique was proposed to measure the melt temperature distribution
in polymer extrusion [46]. An ECT sensor with eight electrodes was
developed and studies are underway to carry out experimental tri-
als on a laboratory scale extruder. The authors believe that ECT will
permit useful temperature measurements of a full two dimensional
melt plane in real-time with a fast response time.
From the discussion above, it is evident that numerous attempts
have been made at extrusion thermal monitoring over the last
few decades. However, it seems that none of the well established
industrial thermal monitoring methods can provide a thermal pro- Fig. 3. Dimensions of the equipment.
le measurement with detailed thermal information across the
melt ow. Some of the temperature measurement techniques in
research are capable of thermal prole measurements but these adapter and die. All of these temperature zones are equipped with
techniques are not yet suitable for use in a production environ- Davis Standard Dual-Therm controllers. The extruder drive is
ment due to constraints such as their complexity, limited durability, a horizontal type separately excited direct current (SEDC) motor
access requirements, disruptive effects on melt ow and out- which has ratings: 460 Vdc, 50.0 hp (30.5 kW), at speed 1600 rpm.
put, etc. Therefore, further improvements to extrusion thermal The motor and screw are connected through a xed gearbox with
monitoring to capture thermal variations across the melt ow a ratio of 13.6:1, and according to the manufacturers information
are invaluable. The development of such advanced process ther- the gearbox efciency is relatively constant at all speeds (96%).
mal prole monitoring techniques may enable improved process The motor speed was controlled by a speed controller (MENTOR II)
thermal monitoring and control and help to overcome prevalent based on speed feedback obtained through a direct current (d.c.)
problems in extrusion industry which may result in high defec- tachometer generator.
tive product rates, long down times, and waste of energy, labour Melt pressure was recorded by a Dynisco TPT463E pressure
and materials. In the next section, an experimental evaluation transducer close to the screw tip. The point/bulk temperature of the
is carried out of ve different melt temperature measurement die melt was measured by four different sensors: a 1 mm diameter
methods discussed in the literature review. Three different types non-insulated wall mounted thermocouple (Non-ins TC), a 3 mm
of wall mounted thermocouples and an IR temperature sensor diameter semi-insulated (a small air gap available surrounding
were selected for experiments as these are used in industrial the sheathed thermocouple junction) wall mounted thermocouple
applications. Also, a well established thermal prole measure- (Semi-ins TC), a 0.5 mm diameter insulated wall mounted thermo-
ment technique in research, a thermocouple mesh, was selected couple (Ins TC) and a Methotrexate (MTX) IR sensor (Dynisco MTX
for temperature prole measurements. Using these ve techniques 922-6/24). More details of the arrangement of the sensors on the
allowed a detailed comparison to be made between their perfor- machine are shown in Fig. 3. Moreover, melt temperatures at the
mance. different radial locations of the die were measured using a thermo-
couple mesh (TCM) with seven junctions (i.e. with 1 negative and
7 positive thermocouple wires) placed in-between the adapter and
3. Experimental evaluation on ve different melt die as shown in Fig. 4.
temperature measurement methods

3.1. Equipment

All measurements were carried out on a 63.5 mm diameter (D)

single screw extruder (Davis Standard BC-60) at the IRC laboratories
of the University of Bradford. A tapered rapid compression screw
with 3:1 compression ratio (feed or solids conveying-length: 12 D
and channel height: 10.53 mm, compression or melting-length:
2 D, metering-length: 10 D and channel height: 3.50 mm) as
shown in Fig. 2 was used to process the materials. The extruder
was tted with a 38 mm diameter adapter by using a clamp ring
prior to a short 12 mm diameter capillary die as shown in Fig. 3.
The extruder barrel has four separate temperature zones and
another three separate temperature zones at the clamp ring, Fig. 4. Extruder die, adapter, and thermocouple mesh.
20 C. Abeykoon et al. / Sensors and Actuators A 182 (2012) 1627
Fig. 5. The thermocouple mesh arrangement.
Work by Brown and Kelly [40,42] has previously presented
this technique in detail and has conrmed that the temperature
measurements across the melt ow are symmetrical across the
thermocouple mesh centreline when averaged over signicantly
long periods of time. Therefore, the thermocouple mesh junctions
were placed asymmetrically across the melt ow along the mesh
diameter (distance from the die centreline to each junction: 0 mm
(TCM-R0), 3.5 mm (TCM-R3.5), 4.5 mm (TCM-R4.5), 9.2 mm (TCM-
R9.2), 10.5 mm (TCM-R10.5), 15.8 mm (TCM-R15.8) and 16.5 mm
(TCM-R16.5)) as shown in Fig. 5. Then, the melt temperatures mea-
sured at different points across the die melt ow can be mirrored
over the die centreline to obtain the complete die melt temperature
prole. A data acquisition programme developed in LabVIEW was
used to communicate between the experimental instruments and
a PC. All signals were acquired at 10 Hz using a 16-bit DAQ card,
National Instruments (NI) PCI-6035E, through a NI TC-2095 ther-
mocouple connector box and a NI low-noise SCXI-1000 connector
box.
3.2. Materials and experimental conditions
Experimental trials were carried out on a virgin low density
polyethylene (LDPE), Dow LD150R (density: 0.921 g/cm3 and MFI:
0.25 g/10 min). The melt ow index (MFI) value is presented accord-
ing to the ISO 1133 standard (190 C, 2.16 kg). LDPE was selected for
the experiments as it is known to be a material with less process-
ing problems and hence may not damage the thermocouple mesh,
particularly at high screw speeds. The screw speed was adjusted
from 10 rpm to 90 rpm in steps of 20 rpm. The extruder tempera-
ture settings were xed as described in Table 1. These temperature
settings were selected from the middle of the operating window
of the extruder for this particular material. This therefore allowed
operating the process under normal conditions as process speed
changed from 1090 rpm. Process data was recorded continuously
whilst the extruder was allowed to stabilise at each screw speed.
Table 1
Extruder barrel temperature settings.
Temperature settings ( C)
Barrel zones Clamp ring Adapter
1 2 3 4
140 170 185 200 200 200
4. Results and discussion
In general, melt pressure and melt temperature are the most
important parameters in polymer extrusion [2], and indicate pro-
cess functional quality. Therefore, melt pressure was also measured
during the experiments. Melt pressure development during the
experiment with screw speed changes are shown in Fig. 6(a). Melt
pressure signal indicates that the process operation was under nor-
mal conditions. Melt temperature measurements made by each
method are shown in Fig. 6(b) and this provides a good comparison
of melt temperature measurements made by the different meth-
ods. The measured melt temperature signals corresponding to the
90 rpm screw speed are shown in Fig. 6(c) for more clarity. The
measurement made by the semi-insulated thermocouple is similar
to and overlaps the insulated wall mounted thermocouple signal.
Therefore, the semi-insulated thermocouple signal is not shown in
Fig. 6(b).
Wall mounted thermocouples are very poor at detecting uctua-
tions in melt temperature which is clearly noticeable from Fig. 6(b).
This is due to the slow response time of these sensors as discussed
above. Also, these readings are highly dominated by the barrel/die
wall metal temperature which may be another reason for having
relatively constant readings during screw speed changes. However,
of these wall mounted thermocouples, the non-insulated thermo-
couple shows a slightly higher temperature reading throughout the
period than the insulated and semi-insulated thermocouples.
The experimental observations showed that the IR sensor
captures the same pattern of temperature variations as the ther-
mocouple mesh. Also, it shows slightly higher melt temperature
readings than wall mounted thermocouples at 10, 30, and 50 rpm
screw speeds. As shown in the measured IR sensor signal, melt
temperature increases until 30 rpm by following the screw speed
increments and afterwards melt temperature reduces as screw
speed increases. The IR sensor captured up to a 30 C magnitude
of temperature variations over the measurement period.
The thermocouple mesh reads the melt temperatures of 7 dif-
ferent radial locations of the melt ow. According to all radial
measurements, the thermocouple mesh shows melt temperature
variations in the range of 075 C throughout the measurement
period. In particular, the temperature of the melt at the middle
of the melt ow (i.e. TCM-R0, TCM-R3.5 and TCM-R4.5) shows a
gradual increase as screw speed increases while increasing the
magnitude of variations. Melt temperatures at the TCM-R9.2 and
TCM-R10.5 radial positions start to decrease with the step increase
of screw speed from 10 to 30 rpm and also this happens with the
step increase of screw speed from 30 to 50 rpm at the TCM-R15.8
and TCM-R16.5 radial positions. Therefore, it is evident that the
thermal behaviour of the melt is dependent upon the die radial
position.
In comparison, it seems that wall mounted thermocouples are
unable to provide details of the actual melt thermal behaviour other
than a constant value of melt temperature which may be signi-
cantly inuenced by the metal barrel wall temperature. Although,
the diameters of the wall mounted thermocouple probes are dif-
ferent, no noticeable differences between their readings can be
observed. This may be due to the fact that all of these sensors
were ush mounted to the barrel wall and hence there are no shear
heating effects at this position. The IR sensor provides the process
thermal information related to a material specic volume of poly-
mer but it is incapable of providing position specic thermal details.
Also, it reads lower magnitudes of melt temperature uctuations
than the thermocouple mesh although it captures the same pat-
Die tern of melt temperature variations as the thermocouple mesh to
some extent. Moreover, the IR measurements may be affected by
the polymer type and the sensor calibration accuracy [8]. Among
200
the 5 methods, the thermocouple mesh provides more detailed
 C. Abeykoon et al. / Sensors and Actuators A 182 (2012) 1627 21

30
90 rpm

Melt pressure (bar)

25
70 rpm
20
50 rpm
15 30 rpm
10 10 rpm
5
0 rpm (a)
0
230
TCM-R4.5, R3.5, R0
TCM-R10.5
220

210
TCM-R9.2
Melt temperature (oC)

200

190
TCM-R16.5 Insulated-TC TCM-R15.8
TCM - R0
180 TCM - R3.5
MTX-IR Non-insulated-TC
TCM - R4.5
170 TCM - R9.2
TCM - R10.5
TCM - R15.8
160
TCM - R16.5
MTX - IR
150 Non-In-wall-TCTC
Non-insulated-TC
In-wall-T-TC
Insulated C (b)
140
0 320 1345 1760 2140 2400 2600
230
TCM-R4.5, R3.5, R0 TCM-R9.2
220

210
Melt temperature (oC)

200

190

180

170
Insulated-TC
MTX-IR
160
TCM-R16.5 Non-insulated-TC
150
TCM-R10.5 TCM-R15.8
(c)
140
2400 2500 2600
Time (s)

Fig. 6. (a) Measured melt pressure signal during the experiment, (b) melt temperature measurements provided by each method, (c). melt temperature measurements at
90 rpm.

information regarding melt thermal behaviour particularly on posi-
tion specic thermal uctuations. However, the melt ow may be
slightly disturbed by the thermocouple mesh as it is positioned
across the melt ow. Furthermore, thermocouple mesh measure-
ments are slightly inuenced by shear heating depending on the
size of the mesh wires and the mesh junctions [42]. However, the
design of the thermocouple mesh is carried out to avoid these prob-
lems by using thermocouple wires and junctions which are small
in size. In fact, the thermocouple mesh provides highly accurate
and detailed measurements under normal operating conditions of
the process and hence is highly useful in a research environment.
However, mesh wires may be damaged under poor melting con-
ditions (i.e. as the melt ow becomes highly viscous as un-melted
materials come out with the extrudate) and through melt solidi-
cation on cooling. Therefore, the thermocouple mesh technique is
not yet suitable for extensive industrial applications.
4.1. Frequency analysis
It is useful to examine the critical frequencies of melt temper-
ature uctuations given by each method for further evaluation
of sensor performance and understanding of the actual process
22 C. Abeykoon et al. / Sensors and Actuators A 182 (2012) 1627

Fig. 7. PSD spectra of melt temperature of different sensors at a screw rotation speed of 90 rpm.

thermal dynamics. Therefore, a frequency analysis of the nor-
malised melt temperature signals measured by each method at
90 rpm was carried out to produce a power spectral density (PSD)
spectrum. This speed was selected as the highest temperature uc-
tuations were observed here. The Welch method [47] was applied
in a Hamming window equal to the data length. This method tends
to decrease the variance due to spectral leakage of the power spec-
tral density estimate relative to computing the power spectrum
over the entire data. In general, the magnitude of a PSD spectrum
(i.e. Y-axis) shows power inclusion of the signal at each frequency
indicated along the X-axis. Only 2000 data points of each sig-
nal (i.e. data of 200 s shown in Fig. 6(c)) at 90 rpm were used
in the frequency studies. While frequencies of up to 5 Hz can be
observed from the data, no signal showed any signicant frequency
components above 1.5 Hz. Therefore, only frequencies up to 1.5 Hz
are displayed in the PSD spectra for more clarity. The PSD spectra at
90 rpm for all the sensor signals are shown in Fig. 7. Moreover, the
minimum, mean and maximum temperatures measured by each
sensor at 90 rpm (i.e. of the same 2000 data points used for the PSD
analysis) are shown in Table 2 together with the standard deviation
(SD) at each condition.
As shown by the PSD spectra in Fig. 7, it is evident that melt
temperature uctuations are very slow and non-periodic in nature.
Most of the signicant uctuations have frequencies below 0.5 Hz.
All wall mounted thermocouples show the dominant frequency
component at 0.005 Hz and hence a time period of 200 s. This means
it is purely due to a drift in the mean data over the measurement
period and therefore is fairly irrelevant to the process. Additionally,
 C. Abeykoon et al. / Sensors and Actuators A 182 (2012) 1627 23

Table 2 0.395 Hz, and 0.435 Hz. However, the power included in the fre-
Minimum, mean and maximum melt temperatures measured by each sensor at the
quency components is not equal as evidenced by different PSD
90 rpm together with the corresponding standard deviation.
spectrum magnitudes. Moreover, the standard deviation of the
Sensor Measured melt temperature ( C) TCM-R16.5 signal is around 3.25 times higher than the standard
Minimum Mean Maximum SD deviation of the IR sensor. As mentioned earlier, the magnitude
of a PSD spectrum shows power inclusion of the signal at each fre-
TCM-R0 179.4 214.0 222.4 4.85
TCM-R3.5 182.2 213.4 221.7 5.03 quency. By having a lower magnitude in the PSD spectrum together
TCM-R4.5 194.8 211.8 221.2 4.68 with a lower standard deviation than the TCM-R16.5 signal, the
TCM-R9.2 157.0 199.9 217.1 8.84 IR sensor shows its poor performance in capturing thermal uc-
TCM-R10.5 143.9 194.1 212.9 13.11 tuations over the thermocouple mesh. This may link with the IR
TCM-R15.8 157.6 183.7 203.0 8.87
TCM-R16.5 172.6 186.9 197.5 5.92
sensors conical measurement volume as readings are mostly con-
MTX-IR 186.2 190.0 193.9 1.82 centrated close to the sensor tip.
Non-ins TC 198.2 196.8 197.9 0.49 The PSD spectra of thermocouple mesh signals at different radial
Ins TC 191.8 193.7 195.1 0.70 positions show different patterns. As shown in Fig. 6(b), the TCM-
Semi-ins TC 192.2 193.2 194.7 0.60
R9.2, TCM-R10.5, TCM-R15.8 and TCM-R16.5 signals contain higher
magnitudes of variations than the TCM-R0, TCM-R3.5 and TCM-
R4.5 signals. These higher thermal variations are reected by the
magnitudes of the PSD spectra as well (see Fig. 7) by having lower
magnitudes of the PSD spectra for the TCM-R0 and TCM-R4.5 sig-
nals than the PSD spectra magnitudes of mesh wires close to the
barrel wall. According to the thermal information given by the ther-
mocouple mesh data (i.e. the measured signals shown in Fig. 6(b),
PSD analysis, and standard deviations), the highest melt tempera-
ture uctuations in the melt ow can be observed at the TCM-R10.5
(i.e. 10.5 mm away from the die wall) rather than the middle of the
melt ow or melt close to the barrel wall.
In summary, this analysis conrmed that wall mounted thermo-
couples give very poor performance in capturing melt temperature
uctuations as shown by very low magnitudes in the PSD spectra.
The IR sensor can capture thermal uctuations up to a considerable
Fig. 8. A comparison of the frequency components with a lower power of the MTX-IR level and its PSD spectrum is quite similar to the TCM-R16.5 signal
and TCM-R16.5 PSD spectra.
PSD spectrum. This means that the IR sensor readings only show
the melt ow information close to the barrel wall. Also, it seems
the PSD spectra of the insulated and semi-insulated thermocou- that the thermocouple mesh measurements are highly useful in
ples consist of another signicant frequency component at 0.035 Hz capturing detailed thermal information across the melt ow.
and the magnitude of this frequency component is higher for the
insulated thermocouple than the semi-insulated thermocouple.
However, this component is not noticeable in the PSD spectrum of 4.2. Covariance analysis
the non-insulated thermocouple. Perhaps, it cannot capture some
of the uctuations in melt temperature as it might be highly inu- Correlation coefcients were calculated between each of the
enced by the barrel metal wall temperature. Overall, all of the wall individual sensor measurements at 90 rpm and are given in Table 3.
mounted thermocouples show very low standard deviations (i.e. The coefcient matrix is symmetric and hence only a half of the
below 0.7 C) of their measurements as shown in Table 2 while hav- matrix is shown in Table 3. Moreover, the correlation coefcients
ing very low power in their PSD spectra as shown in Fig. 7. These of the Non-ins TC, Semi-ins TC, Ins TC and MTX-IR with each ther-
indicate their poor performance in capturing thermal uctuations mocouple mesh junction are shown in Fig. 9. Normally, correlation
in the melt ow. coefcient represents the normalised measure of the strengths and
A comparison of the frequency components of the MTX-IR and directions of the linear relationship between two variables and this
TCM-R16.5 signals PSD spectra (i.e. except the components with ranges from 1 to 1, where positive values indicate that variables
higher power which are shown in Fig. 7(b) and (h)) is shown in are positively correlated (i.e. variables vary in the same direction)
Fig. 8. As shown in Figs. 7(b), (h) and 8, the melt temperature sig- and the strength of the positive correlation increases from 0 to 1.
nals of the IR sensor and TCM-R16.5 hold critical frequencies in Negative values specify that variables are negatively correlated (i.e.
the same locations: 0.01 Hz, 0.055 Hz, 0.155 Hz, 0.32 Hz, 0.375 Hz, variables vary in the opposite direction) while the strength of the

Table 3
Correlation coefcients between each of the individual sensor measurements at 90 rpm.

TCM-R0 TCM-R3.5 TCM-R4.5 TCM-R9.2 TCM-R10.5 TCM-R15.8 TCM-R16.5 MTX-IR Non-ins TC Ins TC Semi-ins TC

TCM-R0 1.000
TCM-R3.5 0.850 1.000
TCM-R4.5 0.426 0.048 1.000
TCM-R9.2 0.170 0.361 0.226 1.000
TCM-R10.5 0.011 0.216 0.444 0.326 1.000
TCM-R15.8 0.019 0.084 0.071 0.104 0.189 1.000
TCM-R16.5 0.144 0.101 0.135 0.004 0.098 0.022 1.000
MTX-IR 0.071 0.038 0.260 0.201 0.229 0.100 0.739 1.000
Non-ins TC 0.099 0.082 0.008 0.002 0.004 0.337 0.375 0.425 1.000
Ins TC 0.086 0.050 0.080 0.027 0.014 0.338 0.522 0.532 0.766 1.000
Semi-ins TC 0.108 0.054 0.098 0.048 0.028 0.237 0.370 0.411 0.685 0.822 1.000
24
1 16.5 mm, 15.8 mm, 10.5 mm, 9.2 mm, 4.5 mm, 3.5 mm,
MTX-IR Ins TC Non-ins TC
0.8
0.6
Correlation coefficient
0.4
0.2
0 but at a lower temperature than what was set at the die wall.
-0.2
-0.4
-0.6
-0.8
-1
0 3.5 4.5 9.2 10.5
Thermocouple mesh radial position (mm)
Fig. 9. Correlation coefcients between each thermocouple mesh junction mea-
surement and the other temperature sensors.
negative correlation between signals increases from 0 to 1. Val-
ues close to or equal to 0 suggest that there is no linear relationship
between the variables.
As shown in Fig. 9, all sensor signals show their strongest corre-
lation with the TCM-R16.5 measurements where the IR sensor has
the highest correlation with the TCM-R16.5 of these sensors. Such
a close correlation between the IR sensor and the TCM-R16.5 sig-
nals was also conrmed by PSD analysis. As previously mentioned,
this is linked to the effective measurement volume and effective
penetration depth of the IR temperature measurement technique.
Moreover, none of the other sensors shows good correlations with
the TCM-R0, TCM-R3.5, TCM-R4.5, TCM-R9.5 and TCM-R10.5 mea-
surements. In general, correlation coefcient analysis also conrms
that the most commonly used point/bulk temperature measure-
ment techniques in polymer extrusion are poor in performance and
provide only information close to the barrel/die wall to which they
are xed.
4.3. Die melt temperature prole
Apart from the evaluation of the sensors performance, an inves-
tigation of the melt temperature prole at the entrance to the
cylindrical die was carried out. Die melt temperature proles were
determined from the measured thermocouple mesh data at differ-
ent radial locations. The dimensions of the experimental setup and
the placement of the thermocouple mesh across the melt ow are
shown in Fig. 3. An illustration of the symmetrical 3-D temperature
prole (which is relevant to the measured melt temperatures of the
Fig. 10. Melt temperature prole from the extruder start-up conditions to the fully developed ow at 10, 30 and 50 rpm.
C. Abeykoon et al. / Sensors and Actuators A 182 (2012) 1627
Semi-ins TC
0 mm radial positions) of the die over the time with applied screw
speed step changes (i.e. 050 rpm) is given in Fig. 10. The time peri-
ods relevant to the applied screw speed step changes are shown in
Fig. 6. As shown in Fig. 10, an almost at temperature prole is
shown when the screw speed is zero (i.e. no material in the die)
The melt temperature suddenly increases just after the increase
of screw speed with the addition of process mechanical heat (i.e.
heat from frictional and viscous mechanisms) and keeps increas-
ing as the screw speed further increases, while the atness of the
temperature prole decreases.
15.8 16.5 19 To further understand the effects of screw speed on the die melt
temperature prole, the fully developed melt temperature of each
screw speed was plotted by rotating the single measured axis (i.e.
average values of the measured melt temperature at each radial
position) around its centre point and the proles are shown in
Fig. 11. The die wall set temperature was used as the melt temper-
ature at the 19 mm radial positions. Then, 15 radial positions (i.e.
distance to each radial position from die centreline of: 19 mm,
16.5 mm, 15.8 mm, 10.5 mm, 9.2 mm, 4.5 mm, 3.5 mm,
0 mm) make a complete temperature prole for this study as shown
in Fig. 5. At low screw speeds, the highest temperature exists in the
middle of the melt ow and temperature decreases towards the die
wall, while the melt close to the die wall has the lowest tempera-
ture. The difference between the highest and lowest temperatures
of a particular die melt ow cross-section is increased with the
increase of screw speed and these differences are around 11 C,
13 C, 17 C, 19 C and 33 C at 10, 30, 50, 70 and 90 rpm respec-
tively. Moreover, changes to the shape of the melt temperature
prole can be observed as screw speed increases. A lower temper-
ature region is created in the melt a few millimetres away from
the adapter wall by generating a shoulder region and this can be
clearly observed at 70 and 90 rpm. This means that the tempera-
tures of some positions of the melt ow are lower than even the
adapter wall set temperature. This may happen due to poor or late
melting (i.e. maybe due to poor heat generation and transfer) and/or
poor mixing of material at high screw speeds as the reduction of
material residence time which may signicantly affect the prod-
uct quality. Perhaps, the rate of transfer of heat supplied by barrel
heaters (i.e. conduction heat) to the material may be reduced as
the material residence time decreases with the increase of screw
speed. It can be seen that the temperature of the shoulder regions
further reduces as screw speed increases. Also, a large amount of
process mechanical heat is generated near the barrel and screw sur-
faces through friction. Therefore, the materials at the middle of the
 C. Abeykoon et al. / Sensors and Actuators A 182 (2012) 1627
Fig. 11. Radial melt temperature proles (i.e. plotted by rotating the average melt temperature of the thermocouple mesh around the central ow axis) in fully developed
ow at 10, 30, 50, 70 and 90 rpm.
melt ow between the barrel and screw surfaces may obtain less
heat for melting which causes poor melting and hence a lower tem-
perature shoulder region in this area particularly at higher screw
speeds. Brown et al. [48] argued that the formation of the lower
temperature shoulder region can be attributed to polymer owing
from the melt pool which develops along the screw length. More-
over, geometrical effects of screws have a great inuence on these
prole shapes while material properties also have an impact up to
some extent in addition to the processing conditions [22,27,29,40].
In fact, these proles show how signicant position specic thermal
uctuations in the melt ow cross-section are in polymer extrusion.
Obviously, the existing point/bulk melt temperature measurement
techniques cannot indicate most of these signicant thermal uctu-
ations in the melt ow. Therefore, details provided by these sensors
are unrepresentative of the actual process thermal behaviour.
4.4. Importance of thermal prole measurement
The PSD spectra of thermocouple mesh junctions at different
radial locations show signicant differences and this illustrates the
differing thermal behaviour at different radial locations of the melt
ow. Melt temperature uctuations in the middle of the melt ow
are not as severe as the uctuations which occur in the melt close
to the barrel wall. Also, these observations prove that typical wall
mounted thermocouples and IR temperature sensors cannot pro-
vide a good indication of the thermal behaviour across the melt ow
25
cross-section. They can only capture some thermal details of the
melt close to the barrel wall. Therefore, the process thermal stabil-
ity cannot be guaranteed if these point/bulk measurement methods
show a consistent melt temperature during the process and this
is absolutely clear from the thermal measurements presented in
Fig. 7. This fact was further conrmed by observation of the melt
temperature proles at different screw speeds. In fact, there can
be thermal uctuations within the melt ow which cannot be
diagnosed by these point/bulk methods. However, it is difcult
to make more detailed thermal prole measurements without
disturbing the melt ow with the existing thermal prole measure-
ment methods and hence non-invasive measurement techniques
may be invaluable to overcome this problem. Although, a number
of non-invasive techniques are available within the industry they
make point/bulk measurements only and do not offer detailed and
accurate process thermal information. Therefore, the development
of powerful soft sensor approaches for thermal prole prediction
may be one of the future possibilities for lling the existing gaps
in extrusion thermal monitoring. For example, techniques such as
the thermocouple mesh can be used in a research laboratory to
make actual thermal prole measurements of the melt ow and
then these measurements can be used to develop process mod-
els to predict a die melt temperature prole incorporating other
readily measurable process parameters (i.e. a soft sensor approach
for melt temperature prole prediction). Furthermore, generalisa-
tion of these models may enable their use with different materials,
26 C. Abeykoon et al. / Sensors and Actuators A 182 (2012) 1627
machines and processing conditions. In the past, numerous
research efforts have focused on the development of rst principle
models to represent the polymer extrusion process mechanisms
and dynamics [19,49,50]. Such models involve complex, coupled
partial differential equations and require computational solutions
by nite difference techniques. Therefore, these approaches were
not practical at that time as these equations/models could not be
solved without powerful computers. However, solving these kinds
of complex models may be possible today with the development of
super computers with very high speed data processing capacities.
Conversely, some of the presently available modelling techniques
may be used to develop simple and highly accurate process models
which can be used in real-time applications without demanding
high computational facilities. Hence, the development of accurate
process models may permit soft sensor approaches which can pre-
cisely represent the process dynamics. These will help not only to
strengthen the process monitoring abilities but also the process
control strategies.
Conversely, the ability to accurately measure melt tempera-
ture proles as opposed to single point or bulk measurements
would be a useful tool in solving a range of processing prob-
lems currently found within the industry. In polymer extrusion,
melt output from machines should be uniform (i.e. uniformity of
melt temperature over time and radial homogeneity across the
melt ow) throughout the process to achieve good quality prod-
ucts. Temporal thermal variations within the melt output may
cause variations of melt pressure and hence output rate, and result
in non-uniformities of optical/mechanical/chemical properties of
extruded parts, or extrudate with un-melted particles, etc. [51,52].
Excessive variation in melt temperature may also lead to varia-
tion in mechanical properties and problems during cooling such as
localised warpage and frozen-in stresses [52]. As previously dis-
cussed, most of the point/bulk measurements are restricted to the
barrel/die wall temperature or melt close to the barrel/die wall.
However, barrel/die wall temperature is not indicative of the poly-
mer melt temperature [32]. Therefore, the measurement of melt
temperature prole helps to determine the actual thermal homo-
geneity of the melt ow cross-section and hence to control process
parameters for achieving the optimum melt ow homogeneity.
Conversely, proper understanding of the actual thermal behaviour
of the melt ow cross-section can greatly assist process optimisa-
tion, for example through improved product design, selection of
set processing conditions and die/screw design while permitting
the selection/design/optimisation of these processing factors to be
driven into a new direction.
5. Conclusions
This work aimed to review of previous attempts made in
extrusion melt temperature measurements and to carry out an
experimental evaluation of the selected melt temperature sen-
sors to understand the actual thermal behaviour of the melt ow
while evaluating sensor performance. A number of melt tem-
perature measurement techniques have been used in polymer
extrusion with both point/bulk and prole measurements. Exper-
imental evaluation showed that the most commonly used wall
mounted thermocouples are poor in capturing process thermal
variations. However, such measurements are useful to obtain rough
estimates of the melt temperature. The IR sensor showed better
performance in detecting thermal variations than the thermocou-
ples. Frequency and covariance analysis indicated that the thermal
information provided by typical wall mounted thermocouples and
an IR sensor are limited to a small volume of the melt ow (i.e.
a point or bulk measurement) where they were xed in the bar-
rel or die wall. Measurements made by the thermocouple mesh
showed that the thermal uctuations varied signicantly across
the melt ow cross-section and these variations increased with the
screw speed. Therefore, point/bulk measurement techniques are
not capable of detecting most of these important thermal varia-
tions although they are commonly used in practice. Based on the
results of this study, it seems that the use of thermal prole mea-
surements are highly appropriate in determining the actual process
thermal stability. Although, the thermocouple mesh technique is a
highly useful technique of capturing detailed thermal information,
it is not yet robust enough for extensive industrial applications due
to its greater fragility. Also the placement of physical sensors across
the melt ow for thermal prole measurement are less attractive in
industrial environments due to their disruptive effects on the melt
ow. Presently, an industrially usable thermal prole technique is
not available and all the industrial processes use point/bulk tech-
niques for process thermal monitoring and control. In fact, detailed
and accurate process monitoring techniques are fundamental to
advanced process control techniques. Therefore, process thermal
control strategies based on conventional point/bulk sensor feed-
back may not provide a satisfactory control performance and may
be responsible for the existing processing problems such as high
defective product rates and long down times resulting in signicant
material and energy waste. In the future, the extrusion industry will
look for more detailed (e.g. thermal prole measurements), precise,
non-invasive, simple, economical and durable thermal monitoring
techniques. Therefore, the development of powerful soft sensor
approaches should be useful as one of the solutions to overcome
the existing process thermal monitoring problems. Development
of such techniques will strengthen process control performance as
well to solve major processing problems.
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Biographies
Chamil Abeykoon received his BSc degree in mechanical
engineering from the University of Peradeniya (Sri Lanka)
in 2007 and PhD degree in mechanical engineering (pro-
cess control) from the Queens University Belfast (UK) in
2011. His research interests include process monitoring,
modelling and control; soft sensors and soft sensing; and
heat transfer.
Peter J. Martin is a Reader in mechanical engineering at
Queens University Belfast in Northern Ireland, and a Fel-
low of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers (IMechE).
He has more than 20 years experience of research into
polymer processes with particular emphasis on extru-
sion, thermoforming and blow moulding. His current
research interests include viscoelastic/plastic modelling
of polymers, nite element simulation of processes, large
strain biaxial testing, in process measurement and control,
micro-forming and thermoplastic composites.
Dr Adrian L. Kelly is a senior lecturer in polymer engi-
neering at the University of Bradford, working as part
of the IRC Polymer Engineering research group. Adrians
research interests include inprocess monitoring of extru-
sion and injection moulding processes, pharmaceutical
polymer engineering, nanocomposites and polymer recy-
cling.
Dr Elaine C. Brown is a Chartered Mechanical Engineer,
working as a University Lecturer and in the IRC Polymer
Engineering Research Group at the University of Bradford.
Elaines research on inprocess measurements has focused
on applying ultrasound to measure melt and/or process
properties in-line during extrusion, injection moulding
and micromoulding, with recent applications to pharma-
ceutical and nanocomposite extrusion, and on new and
innovative methods of measuring melt temperature in
extrusion and injection moulding.