Advanced structural foam molding using a continuous polymer/gas melt flow stream

This article introduces a patented advanced structural foam molding technology. By the implementation of a means of continuing the polymer matrix melt flow stream, the processing conditions are made consistent, and the injected gas is thus uniformly dispersed throughout the polymer matrix. Compared with its predecessors targeted at similar applications, this new technology generates single‐phase polymer/blowing agent solutions and is therefore capable of producing parts with smaller cell sizes, more uniform cell size distributions, higher void fractions, and similar geometric accuracy. Fine‐celled parts (>106 cells/cm3) with high void fractions (>30%) were successfully produced in this research with an advanced structural foam molding machine that was built in house.