• Transactions of Materials Processing
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• v.15 no.1 s.82
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• pp.15-20
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• 2006

The rapid thermal response (RTR) molding is a novel process developed to raise the temperature of mold surface rapidly to the polymer melt temperature prior to the injection stage and then cool rapidly to the ejection temperature. The resulting filling process is achieved inside a hot mold cavity by prohibiting formation of frozen layer so as to enable thin wall injection molding without filling difficulty. The present work covers flow simulation of thin wall injection molding using the RTR molding process. In order to take into account the effects of thermal boundary conditions of the RTR mold, coupled analysis with transient heat transfer simulation is suggested and compared with conventional isothermal analysis. The proposed coupled simulation approach based on solid elements provides reliable thin wall flow estimation for both the conventional molding and the RTR molding processes.

• Transactions of Materials Processing
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.48-53
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• 2013

As the adoption of injection molding technology increases, injected-molded optical products require higher dimensional accuracy and optical stability than ever before. In the present study, four kinds of molding methods, i.e., conventional injection molding (CIM), injection/compression molding (ICM), rapid heat and cooling the mold(RHCM) and rapid injection/compression molding (RICM) were selected in order to investigate the optical anisotropy of a 7 inch Light Guide Plate(LGP) by examining the gap-wise distribution of birefringence and the extinction angle. The results indicate that the compression process can decrease flow-induced birefringence over the whole region and that rapid heating can decrease the birefringence level better than conventional molding. In addition, for the combination of compression and rapid heating a reversal flow was detected from the distribution of the extinction angle near the gate.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Technology of Plasticity Conference
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• 2009.10a
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• pp.437-440
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• 2009

High-frequency induction is an efficient way to heat mold surface by electromagnetic induction in a non-contact manner. Thanks to its capability of rapid heating and cooling of mold surface, it has been recently applied to the injection molding. The present study applies the high-frequency induction heating for elimination of weldlines in an injection-molded plastic part. To eliminate weldlines, the mold temperature of the corresponding weld locations should be maintained higher than the glass transition temperature of the resin material. Through experiments, the maximum temperature of $143^{\circ}C$ is obtained on the mold surface around the elliptic coil, while the temperature of the mold plate is lower than $60^{\circ}C$. An injection molding experiment is then performed with the aid of induction heating, and the effect of induction heating conditions on the surface appearance of the weldline is investigated.

• Transactions of Materials Processing
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• v.16 no.4 s.94
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• pp.282-287
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• 2007

Hot embossing, one of Nanoimprint Lithography(NIL) techniques, has been getting attention as an alternative candidate of next generation patterning technologies by the advantages of simplicity and low cost compared to conventional photolithographies. A typical hot embossing usually, however, takes more than ten minutes for one cycle of the process because of a long thermal cycling. Over the last few years a number of studies have been made to reduce the cycle time for hot embossing or similar patterning processes. The target of this research is to develop an induction heating apparatus for heating a metallic micro patterning mold at very high speed with the large-area uniformity of temperature distribution. It was found that a 0.5 mm-thick nickel mold can be heated from $25^{\circ}C\;to\;150^{\circ}C$ within 1.5 seconds with the temperature variation of ${\pm}5^{\circ}C$ in 4-inch diameter area, using the induction heating apparatus.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 2008.06a
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• pp.503-504
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• 2008

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.32 no.6
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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.

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2000.04a
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• pp.91-96
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• 2000

Glass fiber reinforced thermoplastic composites were manufactured by Rapid Press Consolidation Technique(RPCT) as functions of temperature, pressure and time in pre-heating, consolidation and solidification sections during the manufacturing processing. It was found that the material property is greatly affected by pre-heating temperature under vacuum, mold temperature and molding pressure. Among them, the temperature In the mold was the most critical factor in determining the mechanical properties and the molded conditions of specimen. The crystallinity of PET matrix was also investigated by differential scanning calorimetry(DSC) measurements for various processing conditions. The level of crystallinity($X_c$) depended strongly on the mold temperature, cooling rate and the type of composite. The difference in $X_c$ is believed to be one of important factors in characterizing the mechanical properties.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 2007.11a
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• pp.73-74
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• 2007

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.9 no.6
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• pp.1754-1759
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• 2008

To produce plastic parts that have fine pattern through conventional injection molding, a lot of difficulties follow. Therefore, rapid heating and cooling methods are good candidates for manufacturing injection-molded parts with micro/nano patterns. In this study, we adopted the E-Mold patent technology. The mold for E-Mold technology has a separate heated core with micro heaters. It is very important to optimize the lay-out of the heaters in heated core because it influences both control and distribution of mold temperature. We developed a optimization method of heating line lay-out by using commercial softwares and compared the output with the experimental results. We used Pro-Engineer Wildfire 2.0 for the mold design, ICEMCFD for mesh generation, and FLUENT for heat transfer simulation. The simulation results showed the temperature profile from $60^{\circ}C$ to $120^{\circ}C$ or $180^{\circ}C$ during heating and cooling process which were compared with the injection molding experiments. We concluded that the simulation could well explain the experimental results. It was shown that the E-Mold optimization design for heater lay-out could be available through the simulation.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Technology of Plasticity Conference
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• 2005.09a
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• pp.9-12
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• 2005

The rapid thermal response (RTR) molding is a novel process developed to raise the temperature of mold surface rapidly to the polymer melt temperature prior to the injection stage and then cool rapidly to the ejection temperature. The resulting filling process is achieved inside a hot mold cavity by prohibiting formation of frozen layer so as to enable thin wall injection molding without filing difficulty. The present work covers flow simulation of thin wall injection molding using the RTR molding process. In order to take into account the effects of thermal boundary conditions of the RTR mold, coupled analysis with transient heat transfer simulation is suggested and compared with conventional isothermal analysis. The proposed coupled simulation approach based on solid elements provides reliable thin wall flow estimation fur both the conventional molding and the RTR molding processes