Development of a twin screw injection molding extruder

This paper documents the development of a novel injection molding machine, the Twin-screw Injection Molding Extruder (TIME). A reduction of capital equipment and thermal degradation is achieved by combining the compounding ability of a Twin Screw Extruder (TSE) with the final part fabrication techniques of an injection molding machine. Tests conducted on a bench-scale model of the machine have shown that an entirely new set of process parameters comes into prominence due to the combination of compounding and injection molding processes. The main control objectives also differ from a traditional injection molding process.