Morphological development during injection molding of self-reinforcing composites. I: experimental results

The correlation between structure development during injection molding and the modulus of injection molded PET/LCP blends were studied. Process parameters such as injection speed and mold and melt temperatures were varied to determine the effect of these parameters on the tensile modulus and structure development of the blends. The skin/core structure in the cross section of injection molded samples was observed with both optical and scanning electron microscopy techniques. Injection molding experiments show that the thickness of the skin layer increases with decreasing injection speed and decreasing melt and mold temperatures. The trends in morphological developments in the injection molded specimens correlate with the measured tensile moduli.