Mold Flow Analysis on Fan Part using Plastic advisor
Abstract
Injection molding is the most widely used method for the production of intricate shape plastic parts with good dimensional accuracy. For plastic components manufacturing process used is Injection molding. While doing this manufacturing process we have to face some problems in filling process, clamping, cooling, and amount of material to inject into the cavity area. Due to the above problems there is wastage of material, time, poor component quality. Optimization of cycle time in injection molding plays a vital role in manufacturing of plastic parts to improve the productivity of the process. At the same time it should not affect the quality of the final product. The process parameters like cooling time, filling time are optimized in which it contributes more in the cycle time by changing the mold temperature, melt temperature and injection pressure. We can optimize Injection molding manufacturing process.
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Introduction
Thermoplastic injection molding is a well known process for manufacturing effortless and complex shaped products in short time and at low cost. Nowadays there is a need for optimizing the processing parameters to increase productivity. In the cycle time the cooling time can represent more than 70% of the injection cycle. Cutting down the cycle time for each part is a major concern in injection molding machine.
Problems found after tooling development are always expensive and frustrating. For plastic part design and manufacture, there is a better way. By simulating the plastic-filling process for injection-molded parts, Pro/ENGINEER Plastic Advisor enables engineers to design for manufacturability, uncover problems, and propose remedies, reducing development time and expensive. Pro/ENGINEER Plastic Advisor simulates mold filling for injection molded plastic parts. Advanced features provide valuable manufacturability insight - insight that can significantly reduce late-cycle design changes and mold reengineering costs.
By changing the mold temperature, melt temperature and injection pressure. We can optimize Injection molding manufacturing process.
Conclusion
After the introduction and knowledge of all the details and concepts with mold flow simulation we can finally conclude that mold flow simulation is a very popular and important technology in the field of molding process.
1. In the production of components in injection moulding process by changing processing parameters by trail and error method, the company is incurring loss in material, time and power.
2. In this thesis, the above problem is rectified by taking software support of plastic advisor which is a module in Pro/Engineer. In this software, the component can be checked for filling by given processing parameters before going to manufacturing.
3. In this project fan part is analyzed for mould flow using material Generic PP. By changing processing parameters for six times, the production of the component is good. In the trial and error method nearly 20 components are wasted but by using this mould flow analysis only 5 components are wasted.
4. And also by using this analysis, the exact processing parameters for production can be determined. Number of components for one hour can be estimated by using cycle time. The numbers of components produced are 284.
5. In this project I have optimized the cycle time by changing the processing parameters like mold temperature, melt temperature and injection pressure.