3/19/2020 How is silver streak / splay caused?

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How is silver streak / splay caused?

Silver Streaks / splay is usually caused by moisture, but can also be caused by high filling rates and poor
vents which can cause entrapping of gas either from the environment, mold water leaks, etc. A single line
that appears like a silver streak, I refer to as jetting. There are many causes but some to look at are the
following.

The filling process should be such that the speed

is not so high until the gate is reached and
material will solidify causing less shear heat as
the injection speed is ramped up. If you are
blasting the material through a small gate,
random shear stress can cause burning and
jetting.
In the case of a nozzle, if small amounts of
material solidify on the nozzle tip and then
subsequently get injected into the mold/gate, the
cooler material will tend to hang at the gate and
free flowing material will flow around this point.
Where the injected material meets can cause
what looks like a silver streak but can actually be a single line that is actually a flow or knit line.
Having a cold slug well at the end of the sprue/runner can trap this initial material from the nozzle
before it gets to the gate and cavity.
Gate thickness variation can cause the same issue if the tooling/ gate dimension is not equal.

Also, keep in mind that during the plasticizing stage, if you have too much screw speed and not enough back
pressure coupled with varying pellet dimensions, you will trap air into the melt and cause silver streaks, but
they "usually" have more than one line. Also I have experienced many times were central feed system may
be feeding another line but vacuum leaks will cause pellets to not drop freely into the feed section of the
screw. The mis-feeding can cause the material in the screw/barrel to be overheated and entrap gas as it
pushed through the compression zone that will show in the part as silver streak/splay. There are many more
possible causes, but need more information and true defect type of actual injection molding.

Few questions regarding troubleshooting silver streak / splay

What type of gate, runner, etc is this? Are you using a single speed injection profile? Is this single cavity and
happening random on each shot or multiple cavities and random on each cavity? Are you sure the single line
is not jetting or a weld/knit line?

Do you find the short line, in any area say closets to the gate or farthest from the gate? Closets to the gate

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