• 대한기계학회논문집A
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• 제32권6호
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• pp.481-487
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• 2008

Rapid mold heating has been recent issue to enable the injection molding of thin-walled parts or micro/nano structures. Induction heating is an efficient way to heat material by means of an electric current that is caused to flow through the material or its container by electromagnetic induction. It has various applications such as heat treatment, brazing, welding, melting, and mold heating. The present study covers an experimental investigation of induction heating in order to rapidly raise the mold temperature. It is observed that the mold surface temperature is raised up to $200^{\circ}C$ in 2 seconds. This induction heating is applied to injection molding of a flexspline for a plastic harmonic drive, which has difficulty in cavity filling because its minimum thickness is only 0.35 mm. The induction heating is then successfully implemented on this ultra-thin wall molding by raising the mold surface temperature around the glass-transition temperature of the molding material.