Application of Standardization for Initial Design of Plastic Injection Moulds

Today, the time-to-market for plastic products ar e getting shorter, thus the lead-time for making the injection mould is decreasin g. There is potential in timesavings in the mould design stage because the design process that is repeatable for every mould design can be standardized. T he preliminary work of any final plastic injection mould design is to always pro vide an initial design of the mould assembly for product designers (customers) p rior to receiving the final product CAD data. Traditionally and even up till no w, this initial design is always created using 2D CAD packages. The information used for the initial design is based on the technical discussion checklist, in which most mould makers have their own standards. This checklist is also being used as a quotation since the most basic information of the mould in the particu lar project is being recorded in it. The basic information in this checklist in cludes the number of cavities, the type of mould base to be used, the moulding m achine to be used for the moulding, the type of gating system, the type of resin material used and its shrinkage value etc. Information on special requirements such as the number of sliders or lifters to be used is also listed in the check list. At this stage, there is still no information on the cooling and ejection design since they are greatly dependent on the final product CAD data. This res earch focuses on the methodology of providing the initial design in 3D solid bas ed on the technical discussion checklist, which takes the role of the overall st andard template since every sub-design has its own standard template. An examp le of a sub-design that has its own standard template is the cavity layout desi gn. The cavity layout for plastic injection moulds can be designed by controlli ng the geometrical parameters using a standardization template. The standardiza tion template for the cavity layout design consists of configurations for the po ssible layouts. Each configuration of the layout design has its own layout desi gn table of all the geometrical parameters. This standardization template is pr e-defined in the layout design level of the mould assembly design. This ensure s that the required configuration can be loaded into the mould assembly design v ery quickly without having the need to redesign the layout. This makes it usefu l for technical discussions between the product designers and mould designers pr ior to the manufacture of the mould. Changes can be made to the 3D cavity layou t design immediately during the discussions thus the savings in time and avo idance of miscommunications.

A Collaborative Framework for Mould Design Based on Service-Oriented Architecture

Aiming at improving the traditional object-oriented three-layer architecture for collaborative design, a service-oriented framework for mould design is established by adding a Web service layer to decoupling the direct linking of user interface to functional modules,making the system being platform independent and programming language independent,greatly facilitating the reuse of existing software and hardware resources. .NET technology is adopted to implement the framework. An example scenario is introduced to demonstrate how the system works.

Genetic Algorithm for Injection Mould Design and Moulding

Obtaining the optimal values of the parameters for th e design of a required mould and the operation of the moulding process are diffi cult, this is due to the complexity of product geometry and the variation of pla stic material properties. The typical parameters for the mould design and mouldi ng process are melt flow length, injection pressure, holding pressure, back pres sure, injection speed, melt temperature, mould temperature, clamping force, inje ction time, holding time and cooling time. This paper discusses the difficulties of using the current computer aided optimization methods to acquire the values of the parameters. A method that is based on the concept of genetic algorithm is proposed to overcome the difficulties. The proposed method describes in details on how to attain the optimal values of the parameters form a given product geom etry.

Application of Multimedia and Internet Technology in Learning Mould Design

With the use of multimedia which combines the use o f text, sound, images, motion video and animation, it is more efficient for studen ts to learn mould design interactively. A program is created using several multi media software to simulate the mechanism of moulding processes in order to let s tudents understand the concept of mould design. In addition, students can even access the program through the Internet. Therefore, the software is defined as Multimedia and Internet Technology (MIT) program. The MIT program consists of four sections: (i) simulation of mould mechanisms, ( ii) cooling system, (iii) material information and (iv) games for tutorials. Sec tion One covers the basic operations of different types of moulds such as two-p late mould, three-plate mould, split mould, side-core mould and mould with und ercuts. Section Two introduces different types of cooling systems such as bubble r, baffle, cooling circuits, etc. Section Three provides some useful material in formation for mould design. Section Four contains games of matching mould compon ents, mould design problem finding and multiple choice questions to test student s how much they understand mould design concept. Multimedia is highly effective particularly in teaching and learning. It changes the nature of learning itself. It makes reading dynamic by giving words an impo rtant new dimension. It allows students to see, hear and do simultaneously, thus significantly reducing average learning time. Furthermore, through cooperative learning on Internet, students can access the program, share data or search info rmation anytime anywhere. Therefore, Multimedia and Internet Technology is one o f the vital aspects to speed up the realization of information age in society.

3D FEM Simulation of Precision Forging Automobile Clutch Damping Spindle Sleeve

The precision forging process is simulated by commercial software Deform 3D using a rigid visco-plastic model to predict the status of metal flow and the distribution of equivalent plastic strain, providing guidance for making decision on the optimal choice of process parameters and mould structure. Trial forging was used to verify the effectiveness of FEM simulation results.