At the department of plastics processing at the university in Leoben / Austria a heat/shear-mixing device for rubber processing was developed. The aim of this work is the investigation of the mixer´s influence on the melt temperature of a thermoplast (HDPE, sort DAPLEN PS6291 from the company PCD Austria). Further the experimental data are compared to numerical results of a FEM-analysis.
In the practical part of this work the influence of this mixer on the homogenity of the melt temperature and the viscosity profile was investigated on the injection molding rheometer. For this purpose the gap of the mixer, the volume flow and the temperature of the heat/shear-mixing device was varied. Further the mixer was replaced by a rectangle channel with comparable gap-width. The experiments proved the melt temperature to be influenced better by the heat/shear-mixing device than by the rectangle channel.
Further the influence of the heat/shear-mixing device on the velocity- and temperature distribution was investigated by FEM simulation. The geometry of the heat/shear-mixing device was created and meshed with the CAD / CAE program I-DEAS. The analysis was run with the material properties of HDPE, DAPLEN PS6291.The
experimental data match well the numerical results.
In addition some different mixer geometries were modelled and analysed. These devices differ from the original geometry in sizes respectively in the assembly of the flow direction modifiers. For these heat/shear-mixing velocity- and temperature profiles at the exit were analysed, too. These analyses showed the influence of geometric parameters of the mixer on velocity- and temperature distribution.