Study on injection molding parameters on PET with bio-plastic material and hot runner mold

Abstract

Trend of global warming is increasingly interested for everyone who concerns on sustainability in terms of material used in production process. Plastic material is widely used in general industry. Presently, PET is used instead of common plastic together with bio-plastic that can be degradable after end of life. PET together with bio-plastic like PLA is more concerned for plastic product design particularly packaging, container, bottle and so on. However, there are rarely studied on plastic injection molding parameters and the impact on quality of preforms prior to both injection and blow molding the final products. The paper proposes simulation and design of experiment on plastic injection and blow molding parameters using PET + PLA Bio plastic material under the condition of hot runner. Case study is applied on a preform water bottle design. There are three factors which are concerned; machine, mold and plastics material. Due to rarely knowledge and information about the plastic injection molding parameters on using PET + PLA, plastic injection molding parameter is studied in this work. Simulation is on MOLDEX together with DOE of the Taguchi method. The study is investigated on controlling plastic injection molding such as melt temperature, mold temperature, packing pressure, and cooling time in each stage. Plastic flow simulation is created and tested. The results are discussed in details.