Effect of rheological parameters on curing rate during NBR injection molding

Abstract

In this work, non-isothermal injection molding process for NBR rubber mixture considering Isayev-Deng curing kinetic model, generalized Newtonian model with Carreau-WLF viscosity was modeled by using finite element method in order to understand the effect of volume flow rate, index of non-Newtonian behavior and relaxation time on the temperature profile and curing rate. It was found that for specific geometry and processing conditions, increase in relaxation time or in the index of non-Newtonian behavior increases the curing rate due to viscous dissipation taking place at the flow domain walls.