• Elastomers and Composites
• /
• v.52 no.4
• /
• pp.309-316
• /
• 2017

In injection molding, the quality of an injection molded product varies greatly depending on the molding conditions. Many researche studies have been conducted on the quality analysis of molded parts according to the molding conditions such as injection pressure, injection temperature, and packing pressure. However, there have not been many studies on the V/P switchover timing. It is known that when a large pressure is applied to a cavity in the packing phase, the cavity pressure is most affected by the packing pressure. In addition, depending on the position (timing) of the packing pressure, it can have a direct influence on quality based on the shrinkage and dimensions of the molded parts. In this study, the change in pressure profile in the cavity according to the V/P switchover position is confirmed. A CAE analysis program (Moldflow) was used to simulate and analyze two models using the PC and PBT materials. In order to compare these results with the actual injection molding results, injection molding was performed for each V/P switchover position, and the correlation between simulation and experiment, especially for the shrinkage of molded parts, was evaluated.

• Polymer(Korea)
• /
• v.36 no.6
• /
• pp.685-692
• /
• 2012

Injection molding operation consists of phases of filling, packing, and cooling. The highest cavity pressure is involved in the packing phase among the operation phases. Thus the cavity pressure largely depends upon velocity to pressure (v/p) switchover timing and magnitude of packing pressure. Developed cavity pressure is directly related to stress concentration in the cavity of mold and it may cause a crack in the mold. Consequently control of cavity pressure is considered very important. In this study, cavity pressure was analyzed in terms of v/p switchover timing and packing pressure through computer simulation and experiment. Cavity pressure was increased as the v/p switchover timing was delayed. Residual pressure after cooling phase was observed when the v/p switchover timing was late, which was due to increased pressurizing time for long filling phase. Cavity pressure was increased proportionally with the packing pressure. Residual pressure after cooling phase was also observed, and it was increased with increasing packing pressure. High cavity pressure and residual pressure have been observed at late v/p switchover and high packing pressure. Compared with simulation and experimental results, the profiles of pressures were very similar however simulation could not predict residual pressure. Packing condition was important for the control of cavity pressure and the optimum condition could be set up using CAE analysis.

• Design & Manufacturing
• /
• v.14 no.3
• /
• pp.8-16
• /
• 2020

In this study, the vibration signal of the mold was measured and analyzed to monitoring the process time and characteristics during injection molding. A 5 inch light guide plate mold was used to injection molding and the vibration signal was measured by MPU6050 acceleration sensor module attached the surface of fixed mold base. Conditions except for injection speed and packing pressure were set to the same value and the change of the vibration signal of the mold according to injection speed and packing pressure was analyzed. As a result, the vibration signal had a large change at three points: "Injection start", "V/P switchover", and "Packing end". The time difference between "injection start" and "V/P switchover" means the injection time in the injection molding process, and the time difference between "V/P switchover" and "Packing end" means the packing time. When the injection time and packing time obtained from the vibration signal of the mold are compared with the time recorded in the injection molding machine, the error of the injection time was 2.19±0.69% and the error of the packing time was 1.39±0.83%, which was the same level as the actual value. Additionally, the amplitude at the time of "injection start" increased as the injection speed increased. In "V/P switchover", the amplitude tended to be proportional to the pressure difference between the maximum injection pressure and the packing pressure and the amplitude at the "packing end" tended to the pressure difference between the packing pressure and the back pressure. Therefore, based on the result of this study, the injection time and packing time of each cycle can be monitored by measuring the vibration signal of the mold. Also, it was confirmed that the level and trend of process variables such as the injection speed, maximum injection pressure, and packing pressure can be evaluated as the change of the mold vibration during injection molding.

• Transactions of Materials Processing
• /
• v.29 no.4
• /
• pp.218-228
• /
• 2020

The prediction of final mass and optimized process conditions of injection molded products using Artificial Neural Network (ANN) were demonstrated. The ANN was modeled with 10 input parameters and one output parameter (mass). The input parameters, i.e.; melt temperature, mold temperature, injection speed, packing pressure, packing time, cooling time, back pressure, plastification speed, V/P switchover, and suck back were selected. To generate training data for the ANN model, 77 experiments based on the combination of orthogonal sampling and random sampling were performed. The collected training data were normalized to eliminate scale differences between factors to improve the prediction performance of the ANN model. Grid search and random search method were used to find the optimized hyper-parameter of the ANN model. After the training of ANN model, optimized process conditions that satisfied the target mass of 41.14 g were predicted. The predicted process conditions were verified through actual injection molding experiments. Through the verification, it was found that the average deviation in the optimized conditions was 0.15±0.07 g. This value confirms that our proposed procedure can successfully predict the optimized process conditions for the target mass of injection molded products.

• Design & Manufacturing
• /
• v.14 no.4
• /
• pp.25-39
• /
• 2020

In this study, an edge device that monitors the injection molding process by measuring the mold vibration(acceleration) signal and the mold surface temperature was developed and evaluated its performance. During injection molding, signals of the injection start, V/P switchover, and packing end sections were obtained through the measurement of the mold vibration and the injection time and packing time were calculated by using the difference between the times of the sections. Then, the mold closed and mold open signals were obtained using a magnetic hall sensor, and cycle time was calculated by using the time difference between the mold closed time each process. As a result of evaluating the performance by comparing the process data monitored by the edge device with the shot data recorded on the injection molding machine, the cycle time, injection time, and packing time showed very small error of 0.70±0.38%, 1.40±1.17%, and 0.69±0.82%, respectively, and the values close to the actual were monitored and the accuracy and reliability of the edge device were confirmed. In addition, it was confirmed that the mold surface temperature measured by the edge device was similar to the actual mold surface temperature.

• Design & Manufacturing
• /
• v.15 no.1
• /
• pp.1-7
• /
• 2021

The position of the gate is one of the important factors for optimal injection molding. This is because inappropriate gate positions cannot fill the cavity uniformly, which can lead to defects such as contraction. In this study, CAE was performed on hot runner injection molding of the washing machine base and plasticity was compared by changing gate position from existing gate position. A total of two alternatives have been applied to compare the plasticity of the washing machine base according to its optimal gate position. The gate position of the improved molds and the gate position of the current mold is analyzed by injection molding analysis. The results of the fill time, the pressure at V/P switchover, clamping force, and deflection were compared. In washing machine base injection molding, the deflection was reduced by about 3.76% in the improved mold 2. In improved mold 1, the fill time during injection molding was reduced by 3.32% to enable uniform charging, and the clamping force was reduced by 31.24%. We have confirmed that the position of the gate can change the charging pressure and the clamping force and affect the quality and cost savings of the molded product.