Experiments and Analysis of Effect of Calender Gaps on Melting of PVC Powders in an Intermeshing Counter-rotating Twin-screw Extruder

摘要

Our ultrasound in-line monitoring studies revealed that dispersion or dissipation melting mechanism played a dominant role during melting of unplasticized polyvinyl chloride(uPVC)in an intermeshing counter-rotating twin-screw extruder.It is found that calendering effect between two screws contributes to the melting of PVC particles,and results in dispersion or dissipation melting.Thus,in this paper,a dispersed melting model in calender gaps is considered to predict polymer melting length in terms of numbers of calender gaps.Effects of screw geometries(channel depth,calender gap clearance)and processing conditions including screw speed and leakage flow on melting length are discussed for particle-filled fluid models.The calculated results are compared with experimental observations by both "screw pulling out" method and ultrasound in-line monitoring method.Ultrasound in-line monitoring provides a solution to overcome the time delay occurred in screw-pulling out method.