The application of optimization techniques to improve the performance of polymer processing technologies is of great practical consequence, since it may result in significant savings of materials and energy resources, assist recycling schemes and generate products with better properties. The present review aims at identifying and discussing the most important characteristics of polymer processing optimization problems in terms of the nature of the objective function, optimization algorithm, and process modelling approach that is used to evaluate the solutions and the parameters to optimize. Taking into account the research efforts developed so far, it is shown that several optimization methodologies can be applied to polymer processing with good results, without demanding important computational requirements. Furthermore, within the field of artificial intelligence, several approaches can reach significant success. The first part of this review demonstrated the advantages of the optimization approach in polymer processing, discussed some concepts on multi-objective optimization and reported the application of optimization methodologies to single and twin screw extruders, extrusion dies and calibrators. This second part focuses on injection molding, blow molding and thermoforming technologies.This research was funded by NAWA-Narodowa Agencja Wymiany Akademickiej, under grant PPN/ULM/2020/1/00125 and European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Grant Agreement No 734205–H2020-MSCA-RISE-2016.
The authors also acknowledge the funding by FEDER funds through the COMPETE 2020 Programme and National Funds through FCT (Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology) under the
projects UIDB/05256/2020, UIDP/05256/2020
