Experimental Study on External Air Heating for an Injection Molding Process

Abstract

Improving the injection molding part requires higher mold temperatures during injection to minimize part thickness and injection pressure. However, maintaining a high mold temperature during the filling process, while lowering the mold temperature to below the deflection temperature during the post-filling process, without significantly increasing cycle time and energy consumption, is not easy. To solve this problem, a variety of dynamic mold temperature controls have been explored in recent years. Gas-assisted mold temperature control (GMTC)is a new technique in the field of mold temperature control, which can heat and cool the cavity surface rapidly during the injection molding process. In this study, a gas-assisted mold surface heating system was experimented with different heating areas. The temperature distribution of the stamp insert and the influence of the stamp size were observed. The result shows that the higher temperature will focus at the center of stamp insert because it is close to the gas gate. Furthermore, the larger the stamp, the lower is the heating rate.