Experimental analysis on the coupled effect between thermo-optical properties and microstructure of semi-crystalline thermoplastics

Radiation heat transfer is the most common method used in thermoforming processes of thermoplastic polymers due to their poor thermal conductivity. Considering the fact that the thermo-optical characteristics of polymers play a major role in the efficiency of radiative heat transfer in bulk polymers, microstructure of semi-crystalline thermoplastics is one of the key factors to understand this heat transfer phenomenon in depth. In this study, a relation between the microcrystalline structure of polyolefin (PO) and its effect on the thermo-optical properties was experimentally analyzed. Information on the microcrystalline structure of the samples was obtained by determining the degree of crystallinity (X-c) thanks to Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC). Using Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy and integrating sphere, optical characteristics of the PO samples were analyzed considering two spectrums that are in near-infrared (NIR) and middle-infrared (MIR) spectral regions respectively. The analyses showed that the degree of crystallinity has a great effect on the thermo-optical characteristics of the PO - particularly considering transmission - in NIR range. Such a coupled effect can be functionalized and adopted to develop an advanced radiative heat transfer model that may be used for addressing various problems on infrared (IR) heating of heterogeneous materials, particularly semi-crystalline thermoplastics. In the last part of the paper, a theoretical approach for consideration of the heterogeneity of semi-crystalline thermoplastics in a radiative heat transfer model was highlighted.