Investigation of pressure-volume-temperature relationship by ultrasonic technique and its application for the quality prediction of injection molded parts

In this study, an ultrasonic technique was employed to obtain pressure-volume-temperature (PVT) relationship of polymer melt by measuring ultrasonic velocities under various temperatures and pressures. The proposed technique was applied to on-line monitoring of injection molding process as an attempt to predict quality of molded parts. From the comparison based on Tait equation, it was confirmed that the PVT behavior of a polymer is well described by the variation of ultrasonic velocities measured within the polymer medium. In addition, the changes in part weight and moduli were successfully predicted by combining the data collected from ultrasonic technique and artificial neural network algorithm. The results found from this study suggest that the proposed technique can be effectively utilized to monitor the evolution of solidification within the mold by measuring ultrasonic responses of various polymers during injection molding process. Such data are expected to provide a critical basis for the accurate prediction of final performance of molded parts.