Injection Moulding Parameters Research Articles

Multi-Objective Optimization of Injection Molding Parameters for Manufacturing Thin-Walled Composite Connector Terminals.

The rapid development of new energy vehicles demands significant improvements in connector structures and performance standards. Wire harness connectors, crucial for linking various electrical components, face challenges due to their small size and thin-walled structure, which can lead to dimensional shrinkage and warping during injection molding. To address these issues, this study optimizes the injection molding process by fine-tuning parameters such as melt temperature, mold temperature, injection time, holding pressure/time, and cooling time. By integrating the Taguchi method with grey relational analysis, the study enhances the molding process for thin-walled composite connectors. This combined approach provides a comprehensive framework for optimizing multiple quality objectives and improving the overall performance of injection-molded composite components.

Injection Moulded Part Analysis by Alignment of Simulated and Referent Part Geometry

Warpage of the injection moulded parts is one of the most common defects after demoulding, which is intensively present in thin-walled moulded parts or parts with non-uniform wall thickness. The level of the warpage can be reduced by optimizing the mould tempering system in the phase of mould design, by optimizing the injection moulding parameters and recently by optimizing the shape of the mould cavity elements geometry – so-called inverse contouring. Computer simulation of injection moulding process can show the level of moulded part warpage after ejection from the mould, but it will not allow detailed measuring of critical moulded part measures deviations. Detailed analysis and prediction of the critical moulded part dimensions can be performed by aligning of the deformed moulded part design obtained with computer simulation, with moulded part reference CAD geometry. This paper shows the main steps and an example of the geometry aligning process for a specific thermoplastic part.

Study on the influence of injection molding parameters on the warpage using simulation and Taguchi method

Injection moulding (IM) is a processing technique produced from polymeric products. Warpage defect (WD) is the defect that generally occurs during the IM process due to the inappropriate processing parameters of the melt temperature, mould surface temperature, packing pressure, injection pressure, and packing pressure time. This paper investigates the IM parameters that influence product warpage by combining the simulation, analysis of variance, signal-to-noise analysis, and Taguchi method. The simulation process was performed by Moldflow software. The product material is high-density polyethylene. The WD has been predicted and optimized to enhance product quality. Melt temperature and packing pressure time are the factors that acrimoniously influenced the warpage of the product. The results show that the packing pressure time and melt temperature have the highest effects on the WD by the contributions of 48.94% and 37.48%, respectively. The optimal IM parameters are scanned again with the WD abated at about 1.2%. The mathematical formula has been constructed to predict the WD with the reflection of acceptable values of 86.29%. The research hopes that the results have been applied to designing and fabricating the plastic product in the near future.

Effect of Process Parameters on the Crystallinity and Geometric Quality of Injection Molded Polymer Gears and the Resulting Stress State during Gear Operation.

The quality of gear manufacturing significantly influences the way load is distributed in meshing gears. Despite this being well-known from practical experience, gear quality effects were never systematically characterized for polymer gears in a manner able to account for them in a standard calculation process. The present study employs a novel combination of numerical and experimental methods, leading to a successful determination of these effects. The findings of the study enhance existing gear design models and contribute to a more optimized polymer gear design. The study first explores the effect of injection-molding parameters on the gear quality and secondly the effect of resulting gear quality on the stress conditions in a polymer gear pair. For the gear sample production, different combinations of process parameters were investigated, and a classic injection-molding and the Variotherm process were utilized. Gear quality and crystallinity measurements were conducted for all produced gears, providing insights into the correlation between them. Based on the evaluated gear quality of produced samples, the effect of gear quality was further studied by numerical means within a meaningful range of quality grades and transmitted loads. Special attention was dedicated to lead and pitch deviations, which were found to exert a noteworthy influence on the stress state (both root and flank) of the gear. The effect of lead deviation was most pronounced when improving the gear quality from grade Q12 to grade Q10 (30% to 80% stress reduction, depending on the load). However, enhancing the quality grade from Q10 to Q8 yielded less improvement (5% to 20% stress reduction, depending on the load). A similar pattern was evident also for pitch deviations.

Optimizing Injection Molding Parameters to Cycle Time of Bioring Cone Cup Products with Taguchi Method

Optimizing Injection Molding Parameters to Cycle Time of Bioring Cone Cup Products with Taguchi Method

STUDY ON THE INFLUENCE OF INJECTION MOLDING PARAMETERS ON THE WARPAGE AND SHRINKAGE IN HOT RUNNER SYSTEM MOLD

The good combination of injection molding parameters (IMP) will make high quality product by elimination of defects occurred during injection molding process such as warpage and shrinkage. This paper investigates influence of IMPs on shrinkage and warpage on injection molding process using hot runner system. Taguchi method and ANOVA analysis are used to optimize the IMPs including melt temperature, filling time, injection pressure, packing pressure, coolant inlet temperature, cooling time, and flow rate. The analysis and simulation processes were done by using a Moldflow software. The plastic material is acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) with some features of the dimensional stability, chemical endurance, and simple processing capacity. The results show that melt temperature and coolant temperature are the main factors affecting the warpage with 66.67% of melt temperature and 15.59% of cooling temperature. The melt temperature and packing pressure are the main factors affecting the shrinkage with 74.62% of melt temperature and 19.46% of packing pressure. The optimal IMP is retested with warpage defect reduced 16.6% and shrinkage decreased of about 2.45% after optimization.

Impact of multiple recycling on the dimensional stability of wood–plastic composite made by the injection moulding process

ABSTRACT This study explored the effect of multiple recycling on the dimensional stability of wood–plastic composite. For this purpose, the injection moulding parameters effective on dimensional stability were first optimized based on the response surface method. Optical scanning, melt flow index (MFI), and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) tests were used to analyse the shrinkage and deformation of recycled samples. The obtained results revealed that some recycled samples were subjected to thermal changes during the grinding and injection moulding process. The MFI and DSC results showed that the high-density polyethylene thermoplastic used in the wood–plastic composite was broken with long chains. Also, thermal changes occurred during the grinding and injection moulding process. The samples recycled three times had the highest dimensional instability (2.8% of shrinkage values). Finally, with the reduction of DSC, the semi-crystalline structure changed to amorphous, and the samples recycled four and five times had 2.7% and 2.5% shrinkage percentage, respectively.

Influence of Injection Molding Parameters on the Peel Strength between Plasma-Treated Fluoropolymer Films and Polycarbonate

Light guiding is used to direct light from an emitting source to a different location. It is frequently realized through a clad-core structure with a difference in the refractive index of the materials. This paper explores the possibility of combining a fluoropolymer (THV) film of low refractive index, serving as a cladding layer, with a polycarbonate (PC) core, via injection molding. Pristine THV lacks adherence to the PC. However, when treated with O2 plasma prior to overmolding, bonding can be established that was quantified in peel tests. The effect of this surface treatment was further investigated by adjusting the plasma treatment duration and time to overmolding. Furthermore, parameter studies comprising the four molding parameters, namely packing pressure, injection speed, melt temperature, and mold temperature, were performed. Numerical injection molding simulations assessed the prevailing temperatures at the PC-THV boundary. Consequently, the temperature-time integral could be calculated and linked with the measured peel strengths by fitting a proportionality constant. While the plasma treatment duration showed minor influence, the activation diminished with time, halving the measured peel loads within 24 h. The adhesion was experimentally found to increase with a lower packing pressure, faster injection speed, and higher melt and mold temperature. Those same molding relations influencing the peel loads were also found with the temperature-time integral when scaled by the proportionality constant in the simulations (R2=85%). Apparently, adhesion is added by molding settings which promote higher interface temperatures that prevail for longer. Hereby, the faster injection speed increases the melt temperature through shear heating. A higher packing pressure, in contrast, presumably increases the heat transfer at the PC-THV interface, accelerating the cooling. The measured peel loads were 0.3-1.6 N/mm for plasma-treated samples and nearly zero for pristine THV.

Effects of injection Moulding Parameters on the Produced Parts

The publication deals with an innovative technology called powder-based metal injection moulding, which is a combination of traditional polymer injection moulding and powder metallurgy. With the technology, it is possible to produce metal components with complex geometry in large series. There is an extremely large selection of materials that can be used, mostly steel, copper, titanium or nickel-based alloys. In this research, the material used is type 17-4PH, martensitic corrosion-resistant steel, and since it is a widely used material, it is examined in many international articles and research studies, and it is also common in industry, so it is advisable to use this type of material for further comparability. Little information can be found in the literature about spraying parameters and their effects, which is why this research focusses on this. On the other hand, these data can also serve as useful information for the industry. During the production of so-called green products, the effects of product shrinkage were measured by changing the most important parameters and comparing the effects of these parameters to traditional polymer injection moulding.

Optimizing the Injection Molding Parameters of Mask Waste Recycling into Door Knob Products

The COVID pandemic has prompted people to adopt new facemask usage habits, which has led to an increase in the waste generated following facemask disposal. Recycling could be considered as a way to minimize facemask waste's adverse environmental impact because of its polymeric component. In this study, the recycling of face mask waste was carried out using injection molding to create a commercial door knob product. The experiment performed using Taguchi L4 orthogonal array was used to optimize injection molding parameters of the barrel and molding temperature as well as the inclusion of the ear loop part. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) ascertains the percent contributions to have minimal shrinkage and maximum product weight. Finally, grey relational analysis (GRA) was performed to obtain optimal parameters in multi-objective optimization. The optimal parameter combination was raised to ensure the successful recycling of waste facemasks into a commercial product.

Weight Optimization of Plastic Injection Moulded Electrical Wire Casing Thermoplastic using Hybrid RSM-Tunicate Swarm Algorithm

The need for fire-retardant material for electrical wire covers and cases is increasing as the global population continues to expand at an alarming rate. In addition to having good fire and chemical resistance, CPVC (chlorinated polyvinyl chloride) is widely accessible in a assortment of forms and sizes, comprising rods, sheets, and tubes. Plastic injection moulding (PIM) provides a method that allows for the production of CPVC items at a rapid pace and at a low cost. When these mouldings are lightweight, they may reduce the amount of non-biodegradable materials that are used in their construction. The present research gives an insight into the CPVC material moulding for electrical wire casing elbows using an injection moulding machine, which was previously unexplored. Four plastic injection moulding parameters were considered in order to reduce the weight of the elbow, including injection pressure, mould closing speed, mould pressure, and backpressure. The 27 tests were piloted in line with Response Surface Methodbased Box-Behnken Design, and the factors were optimised using Tunicate Swarm Algorithm, which was recently developed. In the case of the plastic injection-moulded item, the analysis of variance revealed that the most significant parameter in the weight reduction was the material used. It has been determined that mould pressure is the most critical factor impacting the weight of the item when it is manufactured. As a result, the optimum manufacture of injection-moulded CPVC components will be facilitated, resulting in optimised weight while also minimising production time and raw material waste for electrical wire casing.

Investigation of segregation in the runner system during injection moulding

The goal of this study is to investigate segregation in the runner system during injection moulding. Segregation is a phenomenon which occurs during the injection moulding of filled or reinforced polymer systems. The effects of segregation can be so severe that the process can lead to waste products. Even though segregation is an important problem, so far it has been little researched. However, it would be very beneficial if segregation during injection moulding could be predicted through simulation software. In order to achieve that, we must first understand what causes segregation. We injection moulded several specimens using polypropylene, a transparent polymer, and used 10.8 V% ceramic beads as filler with different injection moulding parameters. We investigated the effect of melt temperature and injection rate, which were set to 180, 220, 260 °C and 5, 20, 80 cm3/s. We observed segregation with an optical microscope and used a furnace to burn the PP and measured the weight of the leftover beads in order to determine the bead content in various regions.

Shrinkage and Warpage in the Permanent Shape of Sape-Memory Polyurethane Parts

The shape memory effect, as the most important ability of shape memory polymers, is a working property and provides the design ability to shape memory polymer features. Shrinkage and warpage are important parameters to control the dimensional accuracy of permanent and temporary shapes of an injection moulded shape memory polyurethane (SMPU) part. In this study, the effects of injection moulding parameters on the shrinkage and warpage of the permanent shape of moulded SMPU parts were experimentally investigated. The parameters of injection pressure, melt temperature, mould temperature, packing pressure, packing time, and cooling time, were chosen as the injection moulding control factors. Taguchi�s L27 orthogonal array design table was used with six injection moulding parameters and their three levels. The results showed that the part has different shrinkage ratios in three main directions, namely, the flow direction, perpendicular to the flow direction, and the direction through the thickness. The results of the analysis of variance showed that the cooling time is the most influential parameter on both the shrinkage (except in thickness) and warpage. The shrinkage in the flow direction as well as in perpendicular to the flow direction decreased with increasing the cooling time. Warpage also decreased with increasing the cooling time. Injection pressure and melt temperature were found to be effective on shrinkage in thickness. Effects of mould temperature, packing pressure, and packing time were found to be limited. A statistically significant relationship has been noticed among shrinkage, warpage, and residual stresses during the study.

Enhancement of quality of polypropylene by optimisation of injection moulding parameters with genetic algorithm

Enhancement of quality of polypropylene by optimisation of injection moulding parameters with genetic algorithm

Enhancement of quality of polypropylene by optimisation of injection moulding parameters with genetic algorithm

Enhancement of quality of polypropylene by optimisation of injection moulding parameters with genetic algorithm

Influence of Injection Moulding Parameters on Electrical Conductivity of Polypropylene-Graphite Composite Bipolar Plates for Hydrogen Fuel Cells

News on Green Energy and Green Hydrogen is spread on popular and academic media. When energy is obtained from sunlight, wind or water, we call it Green Energy. When hydrogen is obtained from electrolysis with Green Energy, we call it Green Hydrogen. Hydrogen Fuel Cells are electrochemical devices that convert hydrogen and oxygen s chemical energy into electricity and heat energy with high efficiency and contribute to the decarbonisation of the power supply. Bipolar plates, essential components of the fuel cells, made in polymer-carbon composites, are an economical alternative to the stainless steel, titan and graphite, traditional materials. Our experiments have used a polypropylene matrix filled with graphite with a total inorganic content of 87%, which contributes to high electrical and thermic conductivity but strongly influences the viscosity, flow, pressures, temperatures, and then challenging to process. Injection Moulding of thermoplastics is a technology widespread in all fields of activities and considerable potential. In this paper, the experiments design is highlighted in choosing the factors. A debate regarding the filling, packing, holding pressures, and the last decades approach and optimisation of injection moulding parameters with the Taguchi Method is presented. Conclusions on the injection moulding process of the bipolar plate made of a polypropylene-graphite composite, the parameters influence with direct effects on the fuel stack s performance are presented. The combined melt and mould temperatures influence most electrical conductivity by better contacting the electrically conductive particles through the polymer s melted layer. The injection pressure influences the mass and thickness of the product and the electrical conductivity by better packing. Furthermore, we suggest an adapted formula to predict the injection pressure considering the inorganic content and the process temperatures in agreement with the experiments.

Constant Temperature Approach for the Assessment of Injection Molding Parameter Influence on the Fatigue Behavior of Short Glass Fiber Reinforced Polyamide 6.

Short glass fiber reinforced plastics (SGFRP) offer superior mechanical properties compared to polymers, while still also enabling almost unlimited geometric variations of components at large-scale production. PA6-GF30 represents one of the most used SGFRP for series components, but the impact of injection molding process parameters on the fatigue properties is still insufficiently investigated. In this study, various injection molding parameter configurations were investigated on PA6-GF30. To take the significant frequency dependency into account, tension–tension fatigue tests were performed using multiple amplitude tests, considering surface temperature-adjusted frequency to limit self-heating. The frequency adjustment leads to shorter testing durations as well as up to 20% higher lifetime under fatigue loading. A higher melt temperature and volume flow rate during injection molding lead to an increase of 16% regarding fatigue life. In situ X-ray microtomography analysis revealed that this result was attributed to a stronger fiber alignment with larger fiber lengths in the flow direction. Using digital volume correlation, differences of up to 100% in local strain values at the same stress level for different injection molding process parameters were identified. The results prove that the injection molding parameters have a high influence on the fatigue properties and thus offer a large optimization potential, e.g., with regard to the component design.

Effect of Variation of Injection Molding Parameters on Static, Dynamic and Thermo-Mechanical Material Properties of Filled Polymer Materials

A material (polymer + glass fibers) is characterized by its inhomogeneity and anisotropy. This material is subjected an injection molding simulation at first (generally unnewton type of fluid). Then the material is cooled and common structural analysis (static, dynamic and thermal) is performed. The cooled material has dissimilar mechanical properties for each of discrete element. Thus the mechanical properties (after simulation of load) will completely have different values when influence of injection molding is included.

Effects of injection moulding parameters on pattern performance of in-mould decorative product

Effects of injection moulding parameters on pattern performance of in-mould decorative product

Influence of thermo-mechanical loads on the lifetime of plastic inserts for injection moulds produced via additive manufacturing

This paper investigates the dependence of the functional life of additively manufactured plastic insert moulds on occurring shear stresses and temperatures during the injection moulding process. As a first step, a dedicated plastic insert is designed that allows for experimentally simulating different shear rates and thermal loads of the injected polymer in a single shot, allowing to assess their effect on the functional lifetime of the insert. Then, a numerical optimisation pipeline is designed to allow the optimisation of the injection moulding parameters, which is obtained by combining Noesis Optimus with Autodesk Moldflow. To enhance the accuracy of the numerical optimisation results, several important thermal mould characteristics are verified using differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and thermo-mechanical analysis (TMA). An experimental campaign aims at validating the optimised parameters and assesses the occurring damage to the mould material. Finally, flow orientation stemming from numerical results is validated by images generated by a scanning electron microscope (SEM) based on a fibre reinforced material, injected in an additive manufactured and a machined tool steel mould.