A Numerical Investigation on Temperature Field in the Oven of a Rotational Molding Machine

Abstract

A simplified 3D model of a rotational molding machine oven was built, and a numerical investigation was carried out with the RNG k-ε approach in FLUENT. Since the temperature field in the original oven structure was distributed unevenly, three types of reformed designs were proposed and numerically studied. Results showed that by changing the inclined angle of inlet flow to 30° downward, hot air flowed onto the mold surface directly, the temperature field around the mold became more uniform but temperature in the bottom of the mold was still a little bit low. By changing the inclined angle of hot air to 30° downward and 45° rightward and leftward, or by changing both the cross sectional dimension of the inlet to 900mm×400mm and the inclined angle of hot air to 30° downward, the temperature field became more uniform and the average temperature around the mold remained relatively high, these two reformed designs were effective with good feasibility and economic efficiency, which could be considered in the future design of rotational molding machine.