Blow molding is a manufacturing process in which thermoplastic preforms are preheated and then pneumatically expanded within a mold to produce hollow products of various shapes. The two-step process, a type of blow molding method, requires the output of multiple infrared lamps to be adjusted individually, so the process of finding initial conditions hinders productivity. In this study, digital twin technology was applied to solve this problem. A blow molding simulation technique was established and simulation-based metadata was generated. A response surface ROM (Reduced Order Model) was built using the generated metadata. Then, a dynamic ROM was constructed using the results of 3D heat transfer analysis. Through this, users can quickly check the product wall thickness uniformity according to changes in the control value of the heating lamp for products of various shapes, and at the same time, check the temperature distribution of the preform in real time.

In this study, basic research was conducted on manufacturing technology of thick-walled light guide a component that controls the light source of automobile lamps. As a preliminary study for manufacturing the final injection molded parts, a model for analyzing the influence of micro patterns on light guides is presented. The optical characteristics of the light guide were analyzed according to the change of the curvature radius of the micro-optical pattern, and the injection molding characteristics of the light guide according to the change of injection molding conditions were analytically evaluated. It was confirmed that the luminance uniformity improves as the R value decreases for changes in the micro-pattern R value, but it was confirmed that there are technical limitations in actual injection mold core processing and high-replication injection molding. Injection molding analysis showed that cooling channel design is very important compared to general injection molding due to thick-wall characteristics and thickness variation. It was also confirmed that the cooling channel has a great influence on the cycle time and birefringence result due to residual stress. As a result of analyzing the influence of filling time, holding condition, and cooling on shrinkage, it was found that the cooling water temperature has a significant effect on the shrinkage of ultra-fine light guide parts, and the holding condition also has a significant effect.

In the fine blanking process, which is a press operation known for producing parts with narrow clearances and high precision through the application of high pressure, die roll often occurs during the shearing process when the punch penetrates the material. This die roll phenomenon can significantly reduce the functional surface of the parts, leading to decreased product performance, strength, and fatigue life. In this research, we conducted an in-depth analysis of the factors influencing die roll in the curvature area of the fine blanking process and identified its root causes. Subsequently, we designed and experimentally verified a die roll reduction process specifically tailored for the door latch manufacturing process. Our findings indicate that die roll tends to increase as the curvature radius decreases, primarily due to the heightened bending moment resulting from reduced shape width-length. Additionally, die roll is triggered by the absorption of initial punch energy by scrap material during the early shearing phase, resulting in lower speed compared to the product area. To mitigate the occurrence of die roll, we strategically selected the Shaving process and carefully determined the shaving direction and clearance area length. Our experiments demonstrated a promising trend of up to 75% reduction in die roll when applying the Shaving process in the opposite direction of pre-cutting, with the minimum die roll observed at a clearance area length of 0.2 mm. Furthermore, we successfully implemented this approach in the production of door latch products, confirming a significant reduction in die roll. This research contributes valuable insights and practical solutions for addressing die roll issues in fine blanking processes.

The mold industry in Japan, an advanced country in the mold industry, is also at a point of great change. The main causes are the Ukraine crisis and the collapse of the global supply chain (parts supply chain) caused by COVID-19. In addition, the prices of overseas products are rising sharply due to rapid exchange rate fluctuations (decrease in the value of the yen). Until now, Japan's monotsukuri industry has been actively pursuing overseas expansion, riding the trend of globalization. However, the trend began to rapidly reverse, and now the monotsukuri industry that had expanded overseas is showing a tendency to return to Japan. Another factor of change is the change in the automobile industry, which is the most demanded product in the mold industry. As the automobile industry evolves from gasoline cars to electric cars, the number of parts that make up a car will drastically decrease. This trend is expected to increase the demand for small-scale production of a variety of products in the mold industry, and furthermore, it is expected that short delivery times will be required in parts development. As in Korea, the production population working in the mold industry is rapidly decreasing in Japan as well. Even if you add up the total population working in manufacturing in Japan, it only accounts for about 15%. Even in Japan, it is judged that it will be difficult to sustain the monotsukuri industry with this small production population. Therefore, since improvement in production efficiency cannot be expected with the same manual dexterity as before, the mold industry is also demanding the development of mold technology at a different level than before to increase productivity. In this paper, I would like to introduce new Japanese mold technology collected through attending the Intermold exhibition. This is an example of applying a dedicated pin (Gastos) to a mold to prevent an increase in internal pressure during plastic injection molding, and a deep drawing press molding technology with an inherent hydraulic function.

The conventional FRP (Fiber Reinforced Plastic) manufacturing process used thermoset resins for ease of molding but faced the issue of non-recyclability. To address these shortcomings, a new process utilizing thermal plastic resin was developed. However, due to the high viscosity of thermal plastic resin, problems such as fiber deformation and a reduced fiber volume fraction occurred during the high-temperature, high-pressure process. In this study, to overcome the limitations of the conventional process, fiber-reinforced composite materials were manufactured through in-situ polymerization using PLA (Poly L-Lactide) resin in the VA-RTM (Vacuum Assistance Resin Transfer Molding) process. The fiber volume of the produced specimens was calculated, and resin impregnation and porosity were confirmed through optical microscopy. Additionally, molecular weight analysis using GPC (Gel Permission Chromatography) demonstrated improvements over the conventional process and emphasized the essential requirement of temperature control.

In this study, real-time collection of mold vibration signals during injection molding processes was achieved through IoT devices installed on the mold surface. To analyze changes in the collected vibration signals, injection molding was performed under six different process conditions. Analysis of the mold vibration signals according to process conditions revealed distinct trends and patterns. Based on this result, cosine similarity was applied to compare pattern changes in the mold vibration signals. The similarity in time and acceleration vector space between the collected data was analyzed. The results showed that under identical conditions for all six process settings, the cosine similarity remained around 0.92±0.07. However, when different process conditions were applied, the cosine similarity decreased to the range of 0.47±0.07. Based on these results, a cosine similarity threshold of 0.60~0.70 was established. When applied to the analysis of mold vibration signals, it was possible to determine whether the molding process was stable or whether variations had occurred due to changes in process conditions. This establishes the potential use of cosine similarity based on mold vibration signals in future applications for real-time monitoring of molding process changes and anomaly detection.

This paper presents the development of a controller that can control the temperature of an heating system based on a thermoelectric module. Temperature controller using Peltier has various external factors such as external temperature, characteristics of an aluminum plate, installation location of temperature sensors, and combination method between the aluminum plate and heating element. Therefore, it is difficult to apply the simulation and simulation results of heating system using Peltier at control algorithm. In general, almost temperature controller is using PID algorithm that finds control gain value heuristically. In this paper, it is proposed mathematical model that explain correlate between the temperature of the heating system and input voltage. And then, optimal parameter of estimated thermal model of the aluminum plate are searched by using genetic algorithm. In addition, based on this estimated model, the optimal PID control gain are inferred using a genetic algorithm. All of the sequence are simulated and verified with proposed real system.

In this study, an injection mold with ultra-small surface properties was manufactured using nanosecond laser processing. A superhydrophobic characteristic analysis was performed on the PET specimen manufactured through this. To this end, a hydrophobic pattern was defined using the Cassie-Baxter model. The defined features were selected with a spot diameter of 25um and pitch spacing of 30um and 35um. As a result of the basic experiment, it was confirmed that the fine pattern shape had an aspect ratio of 1:1 when the pitch interval was 35um and 20 iterations. Through the determined processing conditions, a hydrophobic pattern was implemented on the core surface of KP4. A specimen with a hydrophobic pattern was produced through injection molding. The height of the molded hydrophobic pattern is 20 ㎛ less than the depth of the core and the contact angle measurement results are 92.1°. This is a contact angle smaller than the superhydrophobic criterion. Molding analysis was performed to analyze the cause of this, and it was analyzed that the molding was not molded due to the lack of pressure in the injection machine.

The fiber-reinforced plastics and cellular injection molding process can be used to efficiently reduce the weight of battery housing components of mild hybrid electronic vehicles(MHEV) made of metal. However, the fiber orientation of fiber-reinforced plastics and the growth of foaming cells are intertwined during the injection molding process, so it is difficult to predict the mechanical properties of products in the design process. Therefore, it is necessary to evaluate the mechanical properties of the materials prior to the efficient stiffness design of the target product. In this study, a study was conducted to evaluated the mechanical properties of fiber reinforced cellular injection-molded specimens. Two types of fiber-reinforced plastics that can be used in the target product were evaluated for changes in tensile properties of cellular injection-molded specimens depending on the foaming ratio and position from the injection gate. The PP and PA66 specimens showed a decrease of tensile modulus and strength of approximately 30% and 17% depending on the foaming ratio, respectively. Also, the tensile strength decreased approximately 26% and 17% depending on the position from the injection gate, respectively. As a result, it was confirmed that the PP specimens have a significantly mechanical property degradation compared to the PA66 specimens depending on the foaming ratio and position.

In this study, we developed a simulation methodology for a technology that rapidly cools molds by directly spraying them with CO₂ in its liquefied gaseous state. Initially, a simulation verification process was conducted using ANSYS Fluent's heat transfer analysis based on temperature values measured in prior research experiments, ensuring a comparable temperature could be calculated. Subsequently, the validated analysis method was employed to evaluate design factors that exert the most significant influence on cooling. An evaluation was conducted based on three factors: part thickness, mold thickness, and the melting temperature of material. Using a full factorial design approach, a total of 27 analyses were completed and subsequently calculated through analysis of means. The impact assessment was carried out based on the temperature values at the product's core. The results indicated that the thickness of the mold had the highest influence, while the melting temperature of material had the least.