9523044 Bigio This Grant Opportunity for Academic Liaison with Industry project will provide the analysis and modeling support to design an innovative new injection molding machine. Conceptual design and theoretical analysis indicate that it is possible to eliminate a step in going from several virgin homopolymer stock to a final molded product made from a blended polymer. The current practice is to use extrusion to blend several polymers in an intermediate step, and the extruded blend is used for feed stock for an injection molding machine. There is often waste at this intermediate step. The proposed approach will do the blending and mixing on the injection molding machine, using a single stage non-intermeshing twin screw injection molding machine. The twin screw is the innovation, because while one of the screws rotates, it moves axially relative to the other. This makes it possible to close the control loop to maintain both blend and molding outputs. A prototype machine will be designed and built by Engel Injection Molding Machine Company, the University of Maryland's industrial partner. Modeling and experimentation will be used to determine the operating protocol for the multivariate problem of controlling blending and molding with the new twin screw design. A factorial designed experiment using this novel machine concept will be used to evaluate the functional performance of glass fiber blended with polypropylene and nylon. The impact of this project is elimination of a processing step and the attendant recycle stream, and the real time control of the blended stock and the molded product at the molding machine. With better local blend control, more recycled stock can be used in molded products.
