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LowCostInjectionMoldCreationviaHybridAdditiveandConventionalManufacturing

1.Introduction

Inmostindustrialapplications,themanufacturingcostofaplasticpartismainlygovernedbytheamountofmaterialusedinthemoldingprocess.

Thus,currentapproachesforplasticpartdesignandmanufacturingfocusprimarilyonestablishingtheminimumpartthicknesstoreducematerialusage.

Theassumptionisthatdesigningthemoldandmoldingprocessestotheminimumthicknessrequirementshouldleadtotheminimummanufacturingcost.

Nowadays,electronicproductssuchasmobilephonesandmedicaldevicesarebecomingevermorecomplexandtheirsizesarecontinuallybeingreduced.

Thedemandforsmallandthinplasticcomponentsforminiaturizationassemblyhasconsiderablyincreasedinrecentyears.

Otherfactorsbesidesminimalmaterialusagemayalsobecomeimportantwhenmanufacturingthinplasticcomponents.

Inparticular,forthinparts,theinjectionmoldingpressuremaybecomesignificantandhastobeconsideredinthefirstphaseofmanufacturing.

Employingcurrentdesignapproachesforplasticpartswillfailtoproducethetrueminimummanufacturingcostinthesecases.

Thus,tacklingthinplasticpartsrequiresanewapproach,alongsideexistingmolddesignprinciplesandmoldingtechniques.

1.1Currentresearch

Today,computer-aidedsimulationsoftwareisessentialforthedesignofplasticpartsandmolds.Suchsoftwareincreasestheefficiencyofthedesignprocessbyreducingthedesigncostandleadtime[1].

Majorsystems,suchasMoldFlowandC-Flow,usefiniteelementanalysistosimulatethefillingphenomena,includingflowpatternsandfillingsequences.Thus,themoldingconditionscanbepredictedandvalidated,sothatearlydesignmodificationscanbeachieved.Althoughavailablesoftwareiscapableofanalyzingtheflowconditions,andthestressandthetemperaturedistributionconditionsofthecomponentundervariousmoldingscenarios,theydonotyielddesignparametersw