Simulation-Based Optimization of Injection Molding Process Parameters for Minimizing Warpage by ANN and GA

Abstract

Plastic injection molding is one of the most used methods for producing plastic products because it can be produced at a high production rate, low cost, and ease in manufacturing. However, one defect that affects product quality is namely warpage. To reduce plastic product warpage, the injection molding process is required optimal process control to increase plastic product quality. The objective of this paper is to optimize injection molding process parameters for minimizing the warpage of plastic glass. The optimization process is divided into two phases. The Finite Element Method (FEM) was employed in the first phase to simulate 32 experiments under various parameters. The parameters of this process consist of melt temperature ranging from 180 to 230 °C, mold temperature in the range of 20 – 45 °C, filling time from 0.82 to 0.92 s, packing time ranging from 5.88 to 7 s and cooling time of 14 to 18 s. In the second phase, Artificial Neural Network (ANN) combined Genetic Algorithm (GA) was developed to predict the warpage and solve the optimization process to find optimal parameters. Combining the intelligent method shows that ANN and GA effectively find the optimal process parameters that can reduce the warpage of the product by 35.73% from the maximum value.