Online Monitoring the Products Quality by Measuring Cavity Pressure during Injection Molding

Injection molding is a complicated production technique for the manufacturing of polymer products. During injection molding, it＇s hard to predict molding quality; the injection molding parameters, such as mold temperature, melt temperature, packing pressure and packing time, affect the final properties of product. The cavity pressure is a significant key factor. Residual stress and injection molding weight are significantly affected by the cavity pressure. This study created an approach to predict weight of injection-molded by real-time online cavity pressure monitoring. This study uses a 6-inch with thickness lmm light guide panel and the largest area beneath the pressure curve of time as well as the maximum pressure as its characteristic. The upper and lower limits of the control are set to ＋2 standard deviations, and GUI （Graphical User Interface）-based LabVIEW software is used to perform calculation and analysis of the pressure curve. The results of the experiment show that the online internal cavity pressure monitoring system can effectively monitor the quality of the molded products. In 500 injection molding cycle tests, its error rate was less than 8%, whereas the deviation in mass of the molded products selected through the system＇s filtering process was successfully controlled to be within ±4%.

Variation of cavity gas pressure in slopes with weak intercalation under seismic load

This study discussed how cavity gas pressure affects the stability of rock mass with fractures under well controlled laboratory experiments.Suddenly-created void space created and the induced gas pressures have been the focus of active researches because they are associated with fast movement of large-scale landslides.A shaking table experiment was set up to mimic weak-intercalated rock slope under seismic loads.Excessive cavity gas pressure would be produced in weak spots upon a sudden vibration load.The drastically elevated gas pressure is believed to be responsible for the creation of cavities surrounding the tension fracture.With dissipation of the excessive cavity gas pressure,the fractures are in unbounded closed-state.This observation explains that the slope body would be split and loosened under several aftershocks,and with the expanding of the cracks,the slope failure eventually occurred.The research of the mechanism of cavity gas pressure could provide a novel insight into the formation mechanism of landslides under seismic load and has implications for the disaster prevention and control theory for the slope stability evaluation.

Numerical Study on Plume Interaction Above An AlternatingDiffuser in Stagnant Water

The plume interaction above an alternating diffuser in stagnant water is studied with 3D Reynolds-averaged NavierStokes equations （RANS） combined with a buoyancy-extended κ-ε model. The steady three-dimensional turbulent flow and temperature fields are computed by use of the finite volume method on a non-uniform high resolution orthogonal grid. The numerical predictions demonstrate a generic flow pattern for different turbulent heated jet discharges： the buoyant jets on each side of the diffuser first merge to form an essentially two-dimensional plume which bends back toward the diffuser centerline due to a low pressure cavity. In general, an under-pressure exists in the cavity until the plumes merge; the pressure increases to slightly positive afterwards. Two-dimensionality of the scalar and flow field is attained much later than the point of zero pressure. The position of merging point is governed by mainly four parameters - the discharge densimetfic Froude number, the port diameter and space, and the horizontal distance between alternating jet nozzles. A formula from numerical simulations is obtained through regression analysis and it is used to predict the position of plume merging point. The predicted temperature fields are comparable to previous experiments.

Suppression effect of jet flow on pulsating pressure of cavity using scale-adaptive simulation model

The suppression of the aerodynamic noise in the cavity has a great significance to solve relevant puzzles of weapon bays. Acoustic field of the standard cavity model is simulated by using the computational fluid dynamics technology based on scale-adaptive simulation （SAS） model. The results obtained by the proposed method in this paper show reasonable agreement with experiments. On the basis of this, effect of different jet flow rates on the time-averaged variables, turbulent kinetic energy, root mean square （RMS） of sound pressure, sound sources distribution and the pulsating pressure distribution in the cavity is studied. The analysis shows that the jet flow has great influence on the cavity flow field and the distribution of pulsating pressure RMS by changing the morphology of the shear layer. The most obvious of these measures is spout4 configuration, the influence mainly in the form of reducing the pulsating pressure of the whole cavity and changing the sound pressure level in the far field. The results show that different jet flow rates have different control effects on pulsating pressure in the cavity and sound pressure level in the far field. Furthermore, the jet flow rates and the suppression effect on the pulsating pressure have no linear relation.

Active Air Venting of Mold Cavity to Improve Performance of Injection Molded Direct Joining

A surface micro-/nano-structured metal plate can be joined with an injection molded plastic piece in a mold,which has been named injection molded direct joining(IMDJ).The injected plastic melt infiltrates the micro-/nano-structure,e.g.,a porous structure with micro/nano pores,on the metal plate while flowing in the mold cavity where the metal plate is inserted.After solidification of the plastic,the metal and plastic materials are directly joined via the micro-/nano-structured metal surface.Since air is trapped by the plastic melt,it is easily imagined that the air in the mold cavity prevents the melt plastic from contacting the metal surface and infiltrating the micro-/nano-structure,which could result in poorer joining performance.To avoid the prevention of the air for the better joining performance,the present study proposes a system actively venting the mold cavity during injection molding.To apply the active venting to IMDJ,venting and sealing systems were newly developed.In addition,a system measuring air pressure of the mold cavity was developed.The proposed system was evaluated by a measurement of joining strengths of IMDJ specimens that were produced under various conditions.From the results,it is concluded that the active venting does not necessarily have a positive effect in any cases:the effect depends on the type of surface micro-/nano-structure.

Supersonic Cavity Flows over Concave and Convex Walls

Supersonic cavity flows are characterized by compression and expansion waves, shear layer, and oscillations inside the cavity. For decades, investigations into cavity flows have been conducted, mostly with flows at zero pressure gradient entering the cavity in straight walls. Since cavity flows on curved walls exert centrifugal force, the features of these flows are likely to differ from those of straight wall flows. The aim of the present work is to study the flow physics of a cavity that is cut out on a curved wall. Steady and unsteady numerical simulations were carried out for supersonic flow through curved channels over the cavity with L/H = 1. A straight channel flow was also analyzed which serves as the base model. The velocity gradient along the width of the channel was observed to increase with increasing the channel curvature for both concave and convex channels. The pressure on the cavity floor increases with the increase in channel curvature for concave channels and decreases for convex channels. Moreover, unsteady flow characteristics are more dependent on channel curvature under supersonic free stream conditions.

Three-dimensional numerical simulation for plastic injection-compression molding

Compared with conventional injection mold- ing, injection-compression molding can mold optical parts with higher precision and lower flow residual stress. However, the melt flow process in a closed cavity becomes more complex because of the moving cavity boundary during compression and the nonlinear problems caused by non-Newtonian polymer melt. In this study, a 3D simulation method was developed for injection-compres- sion molding. In this method, arbitrary Lagrangian- Eulerian was introduced to model the moving-boundary flow problem in the compression stage. The non-New- tonian characteristics and compressibility of the polymer melt were considered. The melt flow and pressure distribution in the cavity were investigated by using the proposed simulation method and compared with those of injection molding. Results reveal that the fountain flow effect becomes significant when the cavity thickness increases during compression. The back flow also plays an important role in the flow pattem and redistribution of cavity pressure. The discrepancy in pressures at different points along the flow path is complicated rather than monotonically decreased in injection molding.