PVT (Pressure-Volume-Temperature) properties of polymers are important for bothengineering and polymer physics. Fig.1 shows the typical PVT diagrams of an amorphous(a) and semi-crystalline polymer (b). PVT diagram describes the specific volume as afunction of pressure and temperature. Specific volume increases with the temperatureincreasing. There is a thermal transition in the polymer. The primary amorphous transitionof any polymer is known as its glass transition temperature, Tg. While Tg is not a sharptransition, the data from below and above Tg will show an intersection that is generallyaccepted as being Tg. As shown in Fig. 1, semi-crystalline polymer exhibits a differentthermal response than amorphous polymer. For the amorphous polymer, Tg is clearly seenas the temperature where the polymer goes from a solid to a melt. The rate of expansion pertemperature increment is much smaller in the solid state than in the melt state. By contrast,the semi-crystalline polymer contains sufficient crystallinity to maintain structuralcontinuity above Tg. While the amorphous content in this polymer exhibits a Tg, the crystalstructure allows characterization up to nearly the temperature where the crystals melt.Polymer PVT data become increasingly important in their value in material science. Theexcess usage of PVT data can be summarized in at least eight major areas (Berry et al., 1998;Hess, 2004): Prediction of polymer-polymer miscibility; Prediction of service performance and service life of polymeric materials andcomponents on the basis of free volume concepts; Correlation of the reducing parameters of equations of state (EOS) with molecularstructures; Evaluation of start and progress of chemical reactions in polymer melts in the caseswhen volume effects accompany the reaction; Materials properties of systems in contact with solvents or gases; Investigation of the nature of phase transitions; Optimizing of processing parameters instead of establishing such parameters by trialand error; Calculation of the surface tension of polymer melts.Injection molding is the most common technique for the mass production of complexshaped products that require accurate dimensions. In injection molding process, some
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