How are steam flow paths designed in rubber curing press platens?

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sriram123
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Hi all,

I'm looking for design of steam platens for Rubber curing presses.The steam platens heat the green rubber article while curing.Other mediums such as oil,induction heating are also available,but I'm more interested in design of steam platens.

There is one patent available in google patents

http://www.google.com/patents/US5173308

I'm doing my second year engineering and I have some basic knowledge in thermodynamics and fluid dynamics.I'm doing an internship and the company wants me to explore this.

What I need to know is how the steam flow path (the width and height) and the pattern of the path is determined.

Any references or some book citation would be of great help...

Thanks in advance
 

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What material are you planning to use and what is the required temperature? Also, is there a source of pressurized steam for use?
 
The platen material will be cast steel (IS 1030).There will be two plates.A grooved plate and a covered plate.The grooved plate will be having the steam flow path.The cover plate will be welded to the grooved plate so that they form a passage.The steam will have a max. pressure of 14 bar.It will be super heated.
 
Ok I'll just give you an idea on how to do it..

Heat will be transferred to the platen surface from the steam initially by convection and then conduction. Knowing the heat transfer coefficients, the required temperature and the mass flow rate of steam, you'll have to design the width of the grooves and the thickness of the plate. The plate of importance is the one one which is used in rubber curing.

I think there will be lot of calculations involving Reynolds number, Prandl number, etc. Check out a book on Heat transfer and check forced convection.
 
You my want to consider heated oil. The injection mould industry has standard heaters configured for this.

With oil you will be dealing with pressures in an uncompressible liquid of a few bar rather than steam at 14 bar - which may be explosive or BLEVE in a catastrophic failure.