The Simulation Of Injection Processes Of An Injection-molded Part With A Thin Shell Feature And The Optimization Of Processing Parameters

In this paper, the plastic injection processes of an injection-molded part with a thin shell feature have been simulated using the commercial software Moldflow. The injection molding conditions and factors have been optimized.The warpage problem of a fan-gated rectangular part is simulated using the experimental design of Taguchi method. The injection processes of a submarine-gated mobile telephone cover are simulated. First, gate location analysis, flow analysis, packing analysis and cooling analysis are performed, and the gate position and the processing parameters are optimized. Then warpage analysis is performed using the experimental design of Taguchi method. The warpage is a comprehensive reflection of the whole course of plastic injection molding. Therefore, this paper regards the degree of warpage as the quality characteristic in warpage analysis. The warpage data are obtained under different molding conditions including melt temperature, mold temperature, filling time, packing pressure, packing time and cooling time. The warpage data are also analyzed using ANOVA. The results are used to compare the significance of each factors and obtain the optimum set of factors.Furthermore, using the optimum set of effective factors obtained from the previous analysis, more simulations are carried out by changing one factor at a time and keeping the others at their optimum level, to investigate the effect of each factor on the warpage and the rate of volume shrinkage. Applying the experimental design of Taguchi is a quite effective method of deducing the optimum set of effective factors in injection molding to produce plastic parts with minimum warpage.