Compression Molding of Polyethylene Foams under a Temperature Gradient: Morphology and Flexural Modulus

For any type of polymer foam, it is well known that careful control of the processing temperature has an important effect on final morphology. In this work, density graded polyethylene foams were produced by imposing a temperature gradient while foaming the sample. This was done by controlling independently the top and bottom plates of a compression mold at different temperatures. By doing so, different density profiles across the part's thickness are produced. In this work, the resulting morphologies are presented with their respective flexural moduli.