注塑模具Runner-Design Concept.docVIP

Nowadays, injection molders are under increasing pressure (pun intended). Demands for tight tolerances, near-zero rejects, and ever-lower cost that were once limited to automotive and medical jobs are now common even for molders of consumer products. Molders have often responded by limiting themselves to molds of low cavitation because they are easiest to balance naturally. But low cavitation requires more molds, more machines, more floor space for the machines, and more people to run them. To remain competitive in a global marketplace, cost can only be reduced by producing parts faster with more consistency and less scrap. If higher-quality parts can be produced from an eight-cavity mold rather than a four-cavity tool, or from 16 cavities instead of eight, cost savings and greater customer satisfaction will follow. The question is how to get there. MeltFlipper inserts use changes in runner elevation to flip the melt orientation by 90°, eliminating asymmetrical distribution of hotter and cooler melt to diverging runner branches. The basis of the solution came to me in 1997 when I was wrestling with the issue of mold-filling imbalance. For years, I had observed imbalances in what have always ben called naturally balanced runners. A member of mycomputer-aided-engineering consortium at Penn State Erie was encountering just such a problem. His eight-cavity mold was naturally balanced, and yet the parts from the molds inner cavities were consistently heavier than those made in cavities farther from the sprue. Tight weight tolerances for this part didnt allow for such variation, and at nearly $20/lb, material waste had to be held to a minimum. I first blamed the two usual suspects: cooling variations created by higher thermal load of the plastic parts near the center of the mold, and plate deflection within the mold. These standard scapegoats had served industry well for years. But this mold had a well-designed cooling system that provided increased cooling to the in