New Experimental Setup Design For Applying Physical Blowing Agent In Rapid Rotational Foam Molding Technology

This paper presents a manufacturing process for extrusion assisted foam production with a physical blowing agent (PBA) for Rapid Rotational Foam Molding. A completely new experimental setup was designed to identify, conceive, establish, and develop, the necessary processing concepts and conditions for fabricating a new class of rotationally molded integral-skin cellular composite having low-density foamed core. The new design incorporates a helical static mixer that can operate at 31 MPa in 200°C environment. Supercritical CO2 will be injected into the pressurized static mixer to thoroughly disassociate into the polymer melt to create a single-phase solution. The process temperature is maintained by PID controlled band heaters and an integral liquid cooling jacket. The system can facilitate rapid pressure drop as high as 30 MPa to produce polyolefin foam.