Study of polymer sintering during rotational molding
Résumé
The focus of this work was to establish the relationship between polymer structure, process parameters and molded materials properties. First, material characterization allowed the molecular structure to be linked with rheological properties. Secondly, the sintering phenomenon was simulated by using a reliable method to measure the surface tension of the molten polymer. Finally, samples were molded with a pilot-scale rotational molding machine. On these samples, some defects were detected such as inner roughness, bubbles and surface porosities. First results showed that there is a relationship between the material properties (rheological parameters, surface tension) and the sample defects (porosity, bubbles). Moreover, we modeled the sintering phenomenon taking into account its kinetics in relationship with the polymer structure and the rheological properties.