Design and Analysis of Plastic Injection Mold for Hexagon Socket Head Cap Screw

Abstract

Plastic is a majorly used material for making customer goods. It is appealing to customers as well as manufacturers. Properties like durability, light weight and moldability make it a suitable choice for consumer goods which are made by mass production. Plastic materials are soft, but they possess adequate strength to be utilized for different engineering applications. After the development of various grades of plastic, it has replaced metals from different engineering applications in the recent past. This article aims at analyzing the suitability of making Hexagon Socket Head Cap Screws (HSHCS) out of a plastic material by injection molding processes. These screws are widely used as threaded fasteners at different places. They are preferably made of ferrous metals and possess semi complex design. They are mass produced by following a series of manufacturing operations. This article will observe the manufacturability of HSHCS by injection molding process. Based on the observation a model mold will be prepared to make HSHCS. The software used for modeling the parts is Autodesk Fusion 360 and that for the simulation of process parameters is Autodesk Moldflow Adviser 2023. Index Terms: Hexagon Socket Head Cap Screws, plastic mold, manufacturability, threaded fasteners, injection molding, simulation.