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Twin‐screw extrusion processes are commonly refined on laboratory‐scale extruders then scaled‐up to manufacturing systems. When using twin‐screw extrusion to compound filler into a polymer, the dispersion of the filler must be considered during scale‐up. In this work, two scale‐up methods are evaluated for how accurately they scale dispersion as measured by the Residence Stress Distribution, an experimental method that quantifies stress developed in a twin‐screw extruder. The first scale‐up method evaluated is the industry‐standard scaling based on maintaining equivalent volumetric flow rate across extruder sizes. Volumetric scaling is compared to a second, novel scale‐up method, the percent drag flow rule, which maintains the same degree of fill in the strongest dispersive screw elements on all extruder sizes. Both scale‐up rules have been used to scale between three extruder sizes and have been evaluated for how accurately the larger extruders recreate the dispersive mixing of the smallest machine. Results indicate that the percent drag flow scale‐up more accurately maintains dispersive mixing behavior than the volumetric scaling. Furthermore, percent drag flow scale‐up resulted in all three extruder sizes behaving similarly to changes in operating conditions. These results indicate that percent drag flow scale‐up is a valid technique to scale real industrial processes. POLYM. ENG. SCI., 57:345–354, 2017. © 2016 Society of Plastics Engineers

Abstract. The process for compounding engineered polymer formulations is comprised of several unit operations. These typically include, but are not limited to: feedstock introduction, polymer melt-mixing, distributive/dispersive mixing of minerals/fibers, removal of volatiles, and pressurization for discharge. While each unit operation has an impact on process productivity and the quality of the finished product, polymer melt-mixing has a significantly greater impact than the others. First, it consumes 50, 60 or higher percent of the total system energy. Second, it generates the highest radial as well as particle-particle interactive pressure of any unit operation. Third, the negative impact on the process of any design flaws in the melt-mixing configuration is transmitted downstream to all subsequent unit operations. For example, a melt-mixing design that is too intense may degrade the polymer while one that is too weak may result in excessive breakage of glass fiber being fed downstream due to the polymer solidifying on the glass fiber and subsequently being re-melted. Another example of the impact of an incorrect meltmixing configuration would be excessive abrasive wear. Adhesive wear is also possible as well as deformation on both barrel wall and screw elements due to high radial forces. Additionally, non-melting material present during the melt-mixing process could be compacted into "briquettes" by the high radial pressure and would have to be dispersed by subsequent downstream unit operations. Other potential issues associated with a non-optimal melting section are pre-mature and incomplete melting. The former is more of a concern with melting of powder feed stock while the latter is more probable with feed stock comprised of a broad range of particle sizes. However, the consequence of both is to convey unmolten polymer beyond the melting section. While this may not be perceived as a significant issue for most processes, it is an issue if the sole purpose of the process is to uniformly melt the feedstock. This is case for powder to pellet conversion of polyolefins and melt spinning of mono-filament.This paper provides a further discussion of the issues noted above as well as associated examples.

Twin-screw polymer extrusion has shown increased utility for creating composite materials. However, in order to achieve the desired product properties, sufficient mixing is essential. Dispersive mixing, or the breaking-up of particle agglomerates, is critical to create filled compounds with the required material properties. In a twin-screw compounding process, the Residence Stress Distribution (RSD) has been used to quantify the dispersive mixing induced by the stresses in the polymer melt. These stresses are quantified by the percent break-up of stress-sensitive polymeric beads. It was found that the amount of material that experiences the critical stress is a function of the operating conditions of screw speed and specific throughput [1]. The quantification of dispersive mixing allows for better control of a compounding process and can be used to design new processes. During the development of a new compounding process, screw geometries and operating conditions are often refined on a laboratory-scale extruder and then scaled up to a manufacturing level. Scale-up rules are used to translate the operating conditions of a process to different sizes of extruders. In a compounding process, the goal when scaling-up is to maintain the same material properties on both scales by achieving equivalent mixing. The RSD methodology can be used to evaluate the effectiveness of scale-up rules by comparison between two or more scales. This paper will demonstrate the utility of the RSD in evaluation of two unique scale-up rules. Conventional industry practice is based on the volumetric flow comparison between extruders. The proposed approach demonstrates that in order to maintain equivalent dispersive mixing between different sizes of extruders, the degree of fill, or the percent drag flow (%DF), must be kept equivalent in the primary mixing region. The effectiveness of both rules has been evaluated by experimental application of the RSD methodology. A design of experiment approach was used to generate predictive equations for each scale-up rule that were compared to the behavior of the original small-scale extruder. Statistical comparison of the two scale-up rules showed that the %DF rule predicted operating conditions on the large-scale extruder that produced percent break-up behavior more similar to the small-scale behavior. From these results, it can be concluded that the %DF scale-up rule can be used to accurately scale operating conditions between different-sized extruders to ensure similar dispersive mixing between two processes. This will allow for greater accuracy when recreating the material properties of a small-scale twin-screw compounding process on a larger, mass production machine.

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