Heat transfer analysis at high cooling rate on the surface of thermoplastic parts

Heat transfer simulation in thermoplastics processing is crucial to predict the quality of parts in terms of geometry and mechanical properties. The results accuracy depends on the knowledge of thermo-physical properties, crystallization kinetics and boundary conditions, which have to be determined in representative process conditions. In this work, we focus on the impact of high cooling rate on heat transfer and crystallization at the surface of a thermoplastic part. For this purpose, a home-made device named “Lagardère apparatus” is presented. It can reproduce cooling rate encountered in injection moulding by the sudden contact between a cold surface and a molten polymer. The first objective of this paper is the direct measurement of the thermal contact resistance used to model the imperfect contact between the polymer and the mould. The mould surface temperature and the heat flux at the interface were provided by a heat flux sensor. The specificity of this methodology was to obtain the polymer surface temperature with an optical fibre associated with a photodetector. A particular attention was made to avoid the invasiveness of the sensors on heat transfer. The second objective of the paper is the crystallization study at the surface of the polypropylene part. The experimental heat flux was compared with computed ones for which crystallization kinetics comes from Fast Scanning Calorimetry measurement and a standard model commonly used in the literature. It seemed that a very fast crystallization occurred at the surface of the part with a lower released enthalpy compared to the bulk.