PARAMETRICAL OPTIMIZATION OF EXTRUSION PROCESS FOR AUTOMOTIVE COMPONENTS MADE FROM PP/TPV-E USING CFD METHODS

Abstract

For a sealing component of the vehicles door, made by extruding plastics PP (polypropylene)and TPV-E(vulcanized thermoplastic elastomer)the optimal set of extrusion parameters can be virtualy determined. Suitable for this type of studies is the simulation software Xflow. The studied component in this paper is the vehicles inner door waist belt. In the fabrication process of this component the productivity can be increased, by increasing the extrusion speed. The consequence is the need to increase the dynamic viscosity of the material, which can be achieved by lowering the temperature and increasing the material pressure inside the extrusion die. The correlation between extrusion speed – material pressure – die temperature, determined with the XFlow simulation program was confirmed through practical tests.