Numerical Study on the Melt Flow Length of the Composite Materials in the Injection Molding Process

Abstract

Improving the melt flow length by increasing the mold temperature has been an issue encountered in the injection molding processes for composite products. In this study, an injection molding process was applied to a melt flow length model having a part thickness of 1.0 mm. The mold temperature varied from 30 °C to 110 °C. Six types of composite materials of polycaprolactam 6 (PA6) and glass fiber (GF) were selected to study the influence of mold temperature on the material filling in the injection molding process. The simulation results denoted that the mold temperature considerably influenced the flowability during the injection molding process, especially using 30% GF; further, the melt flow length was increased by 25.5% when the mold temperature was increased from 30 °C to 110 °C. In accordance with the simulation, our experiments demonstrated that we could achieve a mold temperature of 110 °C using all types of composite materials. Therefore, in this study, we denoted that both the simulation and experimental results of the melt flow length were comparable, thereby indicating a good agreement.