Computer aided injection moulding process analysis of polyvinyl alcohol–starch green biodegradable polymer compound

This study aims to investigate the injection moulding processability of polyvinyl alcohol (PVOH) blending with starch as biodegradable polymer compound. The PVOH–starch polymer compound can be used to produce environmental friendly plastic products. In this study, the injection moulding processability of PVOH–starch compound was computational analyzed by Moldflow® software. A name tag article design was chosen to determine the appropriate processing parameters of PVOH blending with 50 wt.% (PPV55) and 60 wt.% (PPV46) of starch. The processing behaviour for both compositions of PVOH–starch compounds was characterized according to injection temperature and pressure, volumetric shrinkage and frozen layer fraction. Moldflow® simulation outcomes exhibited that PPV55 required a higher injection pressure than PPV46. Meanwhile, the simulation outcomes also showed that the volumetric shrinkage of PPV55 is higher than PPV46. Both PPV46 and PPV55 require at least 20 s holding time to achieve stable production.

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