• 한국정밀공학회지
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• 제32권11호
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• pp.953-960
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• 2015

The thermoforming process has been widely used to manufacture medium- and large-sized plastic parts because of the relatively low cost and high productivity, as compared with other plastic forming processes. One of current salient issues of thermoforming industries is the reduction of trial and error during the production of the thermoformed product. Hence, there is a significant increasing interest in the thermoforming analysis by the thermoforming industries. The goal of this paper is to investigate a methodology of the three-dimensional thermoforming analysis for medium- and large-sized plastic parts. There is a discussion about methodologies of thermoforming analysis, as well as material modeling, and three-dimensional finite element analysis. Furthermore, there is an examination, through case studies, about the applicability of the proposed methodology concerning the thermoforming analysis.

• 한국전산유체공학회지
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• 제18권3호
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• pp.20-25
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• 2013

In various manufacturing industries, an in-mold decoration (IMD) process for plastic objects is widely utilized because a film forming and an injection molding processes run simultaneously. In the present study, the deformation of polymer film and filling of resin in the IMD process were numerically investigated to evaluate the quality of the plastic object formed by the IMD process, which consists of thermoforming and injection molding processes. To obtain the initial shape of the polymer film during the injection molding process, the deformation of the polymer film in the thermoforming process was pre-formed using the vacuum conditions to attach the film to a cavity. Since the properties and deformation of polymer film are greatly affected by the behavior of polymer resin being injected into a mold cavity, numerical simulations for the injection molding and film forming were performed with one-way coupling method. The results showed that the injected resin could lead to the tearing of the polymer film in local regions near the corners. In order to verify the proposed numerical methodology, the numerical results of the deformation patterns printed on the initial polymer film were compared with the experimental data. The proposed methodology to couple film forming analysis with injection molding analysis can be used to predict the deformation of film in IMD process.

• 한국정밀공학회:학술대회논문집
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• 한국정밀공학회 2002년도 추계학술대회 논문집
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• pp.663-666
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• 2002

Originally, the thermoforming method has been developed to produce the plastic parts which have simple geometric characteristics such as door trims and wrapping materials within the short time. But the thermoformed parts have non-uniform thickness distributions over the surface according to the material characteristics, set-up angle and geometry of the parts. But, only few analysis methods have been developed so far, due to the difficulties of the selection of important factors, and contribution of each factor in the simulation. So, to guarantee the dimensional accuracy and mechanical properties of crucial points in the thermoformed parts, it is necessary to develop the thickness prediction method. This research suggests a new approaching methodology to predict the thermoformed parts by modulating the control points of the NURBS curve. The newly developed method makes it possible not only to choose the suitable thickness of polymer sheets but also to induce data modification for vacuum forming.