DEVELOPMENT OF A COOLING DIE USED IN PLASTIC PIPE PROCESSING: NUMERICAL AND EXPERIMENTAL ANALYSIS

Year 2018, Volume: 4 Issue: 4 - Special Issue 8: International Technology Congress 2017, Pune, India, 2096 - 2116, 10.04.2018

Zafer Gemici

https://doi.org/10.18186/journal-of-thermal-engineering.415298

Cited By: 1

Abstract

In
this study, cooling of a plastic pipe-end during a hot-forming process that is
one of the commonly used forming methods in plastic pipe production to get seal
housing place (muff) was investigated numerically and experimentally. The aim
of this study was development of a cooling die that has higher cooling performance
and easier manufacturability. Cooling is supplied by the circulation of conditioned
water in the channels located in the die in plastic production. The geometry of
these channels and mass flow rate and temperature of the cooling water are the
parameters affecting the quality of the formed region and process time. In the
study, experimental analyses were performed, then numerical analyses were
realised and validated with the experimental results for the existing die
geometry. Continuity, momentum and energy equations were solved all together
and heat transfer was investigated. After validating the model, a few different
alternative die models were proposed and analysed to get an optimum which has
highest cooling capacity and process ability. At the end of these studies,
optimum alternative die geometry was determined. The channels in the suggested die
were developed to increase the homogeneity of the cooling by changing the
existing channel’s shape which can be produced by only longitudinal holes. A simple
production method was also suggested for the new die to locate the channels
following the circumference of the pipe, like conformal cooling channels. Additionally,
aluminium material was also used to decrease the pipe temperature and die
weight in the analyses. In conclusion, although cooling process time and mean temperature
of the pipe-end were 30 secs and 43.9 ^oC respectively for the
existing cooling die, these values were determined as 30 secs and 39.5 ^oC
for the optimised aluminium die. If the temperature of the cooled pipe is taken
as the same with the existing cooling, the cooling time decreases to around 20
secs for the suggested die. The weight of the die was reduced from 86.57 kg to 16.22
kg.

Keywords

Plastic Pipe, Muff, Hot-forming, Cooling, Numerical and Experimental Analysi

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