Vibration Assisted Extrusion of Polypropylene

A new homemade apparatus, i.e. vibration assisted extrusion equipment, is employed to extrude polypropylene. Vibration assisted extrusion is based on the application of a specific macroscopic shear vibration field. Reduction of apparent melt viscosity as a function of vibration frequency is measured at different screw speeds and die temperatures. The effect of the process is investigated by performing mechanical tests, differential scanning calorimetry studies, polarized light microscopy and wide-angle X-ray diffraction. It is found that, compared with conventional extrusion, vibration assisted extrusion could effectively improve the rheological properties of PP melt by incorporating an extra shear vibration field. Both the tensile strength and elongation at break increased under the shear vibration field. For vibration assisted extrusion samples, both the melting temperature and crystallinity increased, accompanied by remarkable grain refinement. Vibration assisted extrusion induced a significantly enhanced bimodal orientation with a high fraction of a*-oriented alpha-crystallites, while only a limited improvement in the flow direction orientation. A structural model, i.e. bimodal c-axis and a*-axis orientation of PP macromolecular chains, was adopted to explain the experimental results.