Polymer sintering and its role in rotational molding

Polymer sintering is a fundamental phenomenon in rotational molding. Sintering experiments have been performed with amorphous and semi-crystalline resins. The effect of material properties has been studied and a model is proposed for polymer sintering. Material viscosity and elasticity were found to affect the sintering process. Most of the results obtained corroborate observations in rotational molding experiments. The proposed viscoelastic sintering model predictions were found to agree with the experimental results obtained in the current work.