Cómo citar / How to cite Vargas, C., Posada, J., Jaramillo, L., y García, L. (2015). Consumo de energía en la industria del plástico:revisión de estudios realizados. Revista CEA, 1(1), 93-107.Recibido: 28 de julio de 2014 Aceptado: 9 de septiembre de 2014Resumen El nivel de consumo energético para la producción de artículos plásticos es una variable que en los últimos años ha cobrado gran importancia, ya que tiene no solo un impacto ambiental en su uso racional sino que tiene un costo representativo para la producción. El artículo contiene una breve justificación de la relevancia de cuantificar el consumo de energía requerido para la producción de piezas plásticas, como también la forma de medirlo en variables tales como consumos fijos y variables, así como determinar el consumo de energía específico por planta de procesamiento, proceso y por equipos. Posteriormente, se hace un recuento de diferentes estudios de consumo y uso eficiente de la energía más relevantes en la industria del plástico, a nivel regional, nacional e internacional. El presente artículo es logrado con el objetivo de proveer un material de referencia básico a investigadores interesados en este tema.Palabras clave: consumo de energía específica, procesos de transformación de polímeros (plásticos), eficiencia energética en la industria del plástico. AbstractThe level of energy consumption for the production of plastics is a variable that in recent years has gained great importance due to its environmental impact on energy rational use, and its representative cost for production. This paper contains a brief explanation of the importance of quantifying the energy consumption required for the production of plastic parts, as well as how to measure variables such as consumption fixed and variable, and determine the specific energy consumption for processing plants, for processes and equipment. Subsequently, it describes several studies about energy consumption rates relevant to the plastics industry in Colombia and different countries that count large polymer processing plants. This paper is made in order to provide a basic reference material to researchers interested in this topic.

The degree of quality of thermoplastic injection-molded parts can be established based on their weight, appearance, and defects. However, the conditions of the injection process may induce effects on the mechanical performance of the injected parts, and the residual stresses can cause cracks or early failures when an external load or force is applied. To evaluate these mechanical behaviors, different experimental techniques have been reported in the literature, where digital photoelasticity has stood out both for being a non-contact technique and for achieving quantitative results through sophisticated computational algorithms. Against this background, our proposal consists of analyzing the overall residual stress distribution of parts injected under different molding conditions by using digital photoelasticity. In this case, the specimens are subjected to bending strength tests to identify possible effects of the injection process conditions. The findings show that, at mold temperatures of 80 °C, flow-induced residual stresses increase with packing pressure. However, these internal stress levels do not affect the external load applied by the mechanical bending test, while the mass injected at higher levels of packing pressure helps to increase the bending strength of the injected part. At lower mold temperatures (50 °C), the mechanical strength of the injected part is slightly reduced, possibly due to a lower effect of the packing pressure.