The RETSINA Multiagnet System: Towards Integrating Planning, Execution and Information Gathering.

Abstract

It is widely accepted that the role of the high molecular weight (HMW) component is cooperative in shear-induced crystallization, owing to entanglements among long chains. However, this paper demonstrates that the HMW component has a novel effect on structural evolution during the process of multi-melt multi-injection molding (M³IM), organized as follows. First, the appropriate HDPE system with an incremental concentration of HMW tails was established. Second, the crystalline morphologies and orientation behaviors of the M³IM samples were characterized using a combination of scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and two-dimensional small angle X-ray scattering (2D-SAXS), and these suggested that the amount of shish-kebabs was not monotonically promoted with an increasing content of HMW tails but tended to reduce at a certain value. Third, in order to explain this phenomenon, the special temperature and shear profiles of M³IM were depicted subsequently, and finally the mechanism of hierarchical structure formation with the influence of various amounts of HMW tail chains was discussed, based on the classical rheological viewpoint.