Measuring and simulating morphology gradients in injection‐molded talc‐reinforced isotactic polypropylene

Injection molded polymer parts are known to exhibit structural gradients of crystallinity, crystallite phases and crystallite orientations. The structural variations depend on the geometry, the material properties, and the processing conditions, and affect the mechanical properties of the molded part. We explore the use of raster‐scanning small‐ and wide‐angle X‐ray scattering (SAXS, WAXS) for mapping the microstructure in dogbone specimens of an isotactic polypropylene (PP) homopolymer and a talc‐reinforced isotactic PP compound. The specimens were injection molded with different mold temperatures and injection speeds, and the mapping approach revealed systematic structural heterogeneities and asymmetries. Accompanying numerical simulations of the injection molding process yielded predictions of the flow pattern, including the shear rate distribution and the resulting orientation of the flake‐shaped talc particles. We found a clear correspondence between the experimentally observed data and the simulations, in particular regarding the asymmetry of the orientation distributions relative to the center of the dogbone cross section, caused by asymmetric flow through the entrance of the mold. Furthermore, the shear rate distribution correlated with the occurrence of α‐ and β‐phases. Subtle differences in the crystallized structures along the long axis of the dogbones suggest an explanation to the observation that the specimens studied always tended to break at the same position in tensile tests. The results clearly demonstrate the potential of mapping experiments which combine lateral resolution on macroscopic length scales with the molecular‐scale resolution from scattering. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Polym. Sci., Part B: Polym. Phys. 2014 , 52, 1157–1167