INC. Combatting Barrel And Screw Wear In Extrusion and Injection Molding Barrel / Screw Preventive Maintenance Guide "Quality and Innovation"COMBATTING BARREL AND SCREW WEAR Introduction During the 1990's the use of glass reinforcements, mineral filers, resins requiring higher processing temperatures and materials with low melt liriity wil futher increase. Whether you are processing those materials or unfllad nun-ofthe-mill resins, combatting barrel and screw wears a competitive necessity. That's because wear imposes severe penalties in the cost and quality of molded and extruded products. In extrusion, barrel andior screw wear will cause a decrease in output, or a need to increase screw ‘speed to maintain output or an increase in power costs and mett temperature. Ininjection moiding, the consequences include a need to increase screw speed and, when thatis no longer possible, an increase in recovery or screw-back time. Eventually recovery time will exceed cooling time, which means longer cycles. Allof these mean increased residence time, higher melttemperatures and, with the thermal degradation that results, lower quality andior tighter limits on scrap reuse. ‘Xaloy's entire business is buit on combatting wear. We are the No. 1 manufacturer of barrels and high-performance screws for plastics machinery in the world. This paperis essentially a summary of what we have learned about the causes of wear and ways to manage it. Factors In Machine Wear There are four main factors in machine wear: 1. Alignment of the screw and the barrel; 2. Process conditions such as pressure, temperature and screw geometry; 3. Material characteristics such as the resi’s lubricity in the melt state as wall as the presence and nature of any additives, fillers and contaminants; 4, Metals used to make the barrel and screw. Inconsidering the four main wear factors, | shall deal with three main types of barrel and screw wear ~ adhesive, abrasive and corrosive. Adhesive Wear ‘Adhesive wear is the result of metal-to-metal contact between the screw and the barrel wall. To the naked eye, a new screw and barrel appear to have very smooth, shiny surfaces. But anenlarged viewot across section (schematically representedin Figure 1) shows that the surtace really consists of a series of mountains and valleys. ta mountain peak on the screw surface hits a mountain peak on the barre! wall, the collision energy is sufficient to produce momentary adhesion in the form of a tiny weld. As the screw continues to turn, the weld is sheared. Aller repeated collisions, particles start to rip away from the surface and become a source of abrasive wear. Figure 2s aphotomicrographot achesive wear. The black areas show where materialhas beentorn away fromthe screw surface. The wear shown in Figure 2 is so severe that it would be visible to the naked ‘eye. The scrow would have large pits. ;INC. “The severity of the adhesive wear shown is related to incompatibility betwoen the screw and barrel materials. The micrograph is of a Stelite 6 screw that was run for four months in our X-800 barrel, a composite of turgsten carbide particles in a nickel alloy matrix. This is an incompatible combination that we do not recommend. Metals difer substantially in their tendencies to adhere to one another. The use of compatible ‘materials is one of two key ways to combat adhesive wear. The other is to minimize metal-to-metal contact between the screw and barrel. Alignment ‘Good alignment will minimize meta-to-metal contact. The ideal is a perfectly straight screw, a perfectly straight barrel and perfect alignment of the two. Xaloy has put alot f time and money into making straight barrels and screws, but even the straightest srew perfectly aligned in the straightest barrel cannot absolutely prevent metal-to-metal contact. The teason is that there are other forces at work in the real world. One of them is heat-related misalignment. Because they do not have the same size and shape, the screw and barre! inevitably have differential heat mass. Also, they are usually made of different materials. These result in different rates of thermal expansion, which will produce misalignment. Buckling ‘Another source of metal-to-metal contact is buckling of the screw caused by discharge pressure at Its front end. Figure 3 shows the calculation of buckling effects using Euler's formula for column loading. The collapsing load, Fis analogous to the discharge pressure al the frontof the screw. Discharge pressures are often about 7 bar in extrusion and 13 or 14 bar in injection molding. At a 7-bar discharge pressure, the total force on a 120-mm extruder screw would be nearly 800 kiloNewion The formula also showe he effecs of serew length and dlameter on the tendency to buckle and attain Contact with the barrel wall. Long screws~with LD ratios of 24:1 or 30:1, for example-are particularly prone tobuckling effects, The smaller root diameter of most screws in the feed section is another factorin buckling effects Deflection ‘The laws of physics also produce a third potential source of contact between the screw and barrel- deflection under its own weightBeing supported at only one end, a screw is, of course, a cantilever device. As shown in Figure 4, the deflection of a cantilever beam is proportional to its length to the fourth power. So again, long, slender screws are quite prone to deflection. Applying the formula for cantilever beam deflection, a 60-mm extruder screw with an L/D of 24:1 wants to detlect by 1.5 mm. it cannot deflect than much, of course, because it comes to rest on the barrel wall. A hefty 200-mm screw would detect quite a bit more, about 11.6 mm, iit were free to do so. ‘The difference in these tigures and in the weights of the screws helps explain why smaller screws and barreis last longer than big ones. itis fait typical to get four years of service from a 60-mm barrel, whereas a 200-mm barrel made of the same alloy and running the same resin might last only a year to a year and a hat. ‘Owing to the forces of deflection, the screw in an empty barrel rests on the barrel wal, The mile of thumb for minimum clearance is + micron per millimeter of screw diameter. Thus, a 60-mm screw \would have a nominal clearance of 60 microns, The real world is somewhat citteront, however. Owing to manufacturing tolerances, most screws exceed the minimum clearance. in the interest of preventing galing, better alle extra clearance than none at all. he Melt As Lubricant When the barrel i filed with melted plastic under pressure, the melt separates the screw from the barrel wall and acts as a lubricant. ‘Two notes of caution, however. One is that the barrel is never completely filled with molten plastic. During processing, i also contains unmeted and partially melted particles, and these can cause intermitient contact between the screw and barrel wall Another point to consider is that plastic materiais differ in melt lubricity. The theological curves of linear polymers such as high density or near low density polyethylene, for example, show continuity of flow up to a certain jevel of shear stress. Then there is a knee on the curve and continuity beyond. Such discontinuity can cause interruption of the mek film and increase adhesive wear. Abrasive Wear The second of the three main forms of wear encountered in plastics machinery is abrasion. ‘Two types of abrasive wear occur in the machine barrel. One is two-body effects resutting from axial ‘movement of hard filer particles or glass fibers through the extruder. Because barrel and screw materials are ‘80 wear-resistant, two-body effects are not of greal concern, ‘When, however, abrasive particles become trapped in the space between the screw fight and the barret wall, we 8¢¢ three-body wear. With the force of cantilever deflection acting on the screw, the particles can become quite effective cutting tools.INC ‘A photomicrograph showing the effects of abrasive wear on a barrel (Figure 5) reveals a pattem of ‘grooves and scratches that run in the general direction of the screw's motion. They do not duplicate the helix angle of the screw flights, but the direction is evident. nti ir How does one minimize abrasive wear? By selecting barrels and screws according to the nature of the materials being processed, ‘Accelerated wear tests performed by the OKI, or the German Plastics Institute, in Darmstadt demonstrate the relative wear resistance of various barrel alloys in molding glass reinforced plastics. ‘The testsuse aconventional Arburg machine with a28.mm screw (Figure 7). The materials injected through a small office in a test platelet made of the barrel alloy being examined. The small size ofthe ortice- only 0.5 mmin diameter-produces measurable wear with a relatively small amount of material, only 10 kgin recent tests using 30% glass-reinforced polycarbonate. Results ofthose tests (Figure 6) showthat the best resistanceto abrasive wear was provided by Xaloy 800, which had a volume loss of 4.5 cubic centimeters. This barrel material s a composite consisting of tungsten carbide particles uniformly distributed in a nickel-boron alloy matrix. X-309, *no-ron’ alloy for the ultimate in corrosion resistance was also pretty good in abrasion resistance. CPM 10 Vis avanadium-containing tool steel, Kaloy does not make barrels rom this material. Some ‘other companies do. Xaloy 102 is awhiteiron with carbon, boron, and nickel asthe major elements. We donot recommend, {this material for processing glass-reinforced thermoplastics. It does a fine, however. in processing untiled resins. Extensive field experience ingicates that it far outlasts nirided steel barrels. Aswell as independent test indicating improvement over X-101 type alloys by a tactor of 1.2 times. Corrosive Wear ‘The third type of wear encountered in plastics processing equipment results from corrosion. This is, encountered in such situations as processing fluoropolymers, flame-retardant resins and compounding or pelatizing resins containing corrosive volatiles, Figure 8 is a photomicrograph of corrosive wear. To the naked eye the surlace would appear pilted. The solution to corrosive wearis chiefly a matter of selecting the right barrel and screw materials. X-309 is our best material for resistance to corrosive wear.