• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
• /
• v.20 no.11
• /
• pp.41-46
• /
• 2003

The objective of this paper is to present a methodology for automatically balancing multi-cavity injection molds with the aid of flow simulation. After the runner and cavity layout has been designed, the methodology adjusts runner and gate sizes iteratively based on the outputs of flow analysis. This methodology also ensures that the runner sizes in the final design are machinable. To illustrate this methodology, an example is used wherein a 3-cavity mold is modeled and filling of all the cavities at the same time is achieved. Based on the proposed methodology, a multicavity mold with identical cavities is balanced to minimize overall unfilled volume among various cavities at discrete time steps of the molding cycle. The example indicates that the described methodology can be used effectively to balance runner systems for multi-cavity molds.