Abstract
In the present study, Moldflow® software is applied to simulate the injection molding of automobile instrument light guide bracket and optimize the injection gate position. In this regard, Taguchi orthogonal experimental design is adopted, and five processing parameters, the mold temperature, melt temperature, cooling time, packing pressure, and packing time, are considered as the test factors. Moreover, volume shrinkage and warping amount are considered as quality evaluation indices. Then range analysis and variance analysis are carried out to obtain the optimal combination of molding parameters with the volume shrinkage rate and the warpage amount. The grey correlation analysis was used to analyze the test results and obtain the optimal combination of volume shrinkage rate and amount of warping. Based on the performed simulations, it is found that the maximum volume shrinkage rate and the maximum amount of warping in the optimal design are 6.753% and 1.999 mm, respectively. According to the optimal process parameters, the injection molding of the automobile instrument light guide bracket meets the quality requirements.
Highlights
With the rapid development of the plastic industry, plastic products are widely used in different automobile parts due to their unique properties such as lightweight, low price, high insulation, and reasonable corrosion resistance
Inappropriate parameters in the injection molding process may result in numerous defects in the final plastic products. erefore, it is of significant importance to simulate and analyze each link of the injection molding process before the production of plastic parts to obtain the optimized injection molding process parameters, control defects, ensure the product quality, and improve the production efficiency
It is observed that the volume shrinkage rate of the edge part is large, and the volume shrinkage rate is small near the sprue. is is because the edge is far from the sprue position, leading to a weak packing pressure. e performed analysis shows that the maximum volume shrinkage rate and warping are 11.82% and 2.081 mm, respectively
Summary
With the rapid development of the plastic industry, plastic products are widely used in different automobile parts due to their unique properties such as lightweight, low price, high insulation, and reasonable corrosion resistance. Hentati et al [9] used Taguchi orthogonal test to conduct injection molding experiments with 4 factors and 3 levels through the statistical design method To this end, they employed the Moldflow software in the simulation and analysis and obtained the optimal process parameters . The automobile instrument light guide bracket is considered as the research object In this regard, the mold gate and cooling systems are simulated by Moldflow software to obtain the optimal gate position. The shape of automobile instrument light guide bracket is complex, and there are many cavities and ribs at the bottom, so the gate position cannot be on the part surface. It is observed that the volume shrinkage rate of the edge part is large, and the volume shrinkage rate is small near the sprue. is is because the edge is far from the sprue position, leading to a weak packing pressure. e performed analysis shows that the maximum volume shrinkage rate and warping are 11.82% and 2.081 mm, respectively
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