ME350 Injection Molding Background Information 1 Introduction

In this laboratory, we examine the process of injection molding both from an analytical/ computational and experimental perspective. In the first week of this lab, you will first create a negative Pro/E model of your designed mold part, and then create 2 STL files from it. You will then run simulations using the Mold-Flow injection molding simulation software for your part as well as for a spiral-shaped part. This will allow you to see how varying your mold design as well as changing process parameters affects the outcome of an injection molding process. In the second week, you will see how to use injection molding equipment to carry out sample runs again for your part as well as for the spiral part. By doing this, you will have the ability to compare your simulation results to your experimental results.

2 Mold-Flow Simulation Software

The simulations will be performed on Mold Adviser (MoldFlow) software, which is a tool for analysis and simulation of the injection molding process. The software is used by part designers, mold designers, process engineers, manufacturing engineers, and managers. It is a valuable tool that provides manufacturability feedback at the earliest stage of design, before investment has been made in prototyping.

3 Injection Molding Equipment and Mold Design

During the injection molding process, solid resin (usually in the form of pellets) is fed into the hopper and melted in the plasticizing or injection unit of the injection molding machine (Figures 1). This melt is then forced from the injection unit into the closed injection mold. While the melt in the mold cools into a solid plastic part, the plasticizing unit melts resin for use in the next part. The final part is then ejected from the mold. Figure 1 shows a diagram of the injection molding machine next to the actual machine you will be using for this lab. Note: The pressures utilized in the simulation {31, 39, & 47 MPa} correspond to {40, 50, & 60 psi} as seen on the Mini-Jectors pressure dial. Converting 40, 50, & 60 psi to MPa, yields values much lower than the simulation pressures. The Mini-Jector machine multiplies the air pressure seen on the dial through its various pressure cylinders so that the actual pressures seen by the plastic entering the mold are actually 31, 39, & 47 MPa.

ME350 Injection Molding Background Information

Figures 1 - Images of vertical injection molding machine with plunger.

4 Basic Molding Parameters

The molding cycle starts with the retraction of the ejector plate, followed by closing of the mold. The injection unit melts the polymer resin and injects the polymer melt into the mold. The ram fed injection molding machine uses a hydraulically operated plunger to push the plastic through a heated region. The melt converges at a nozzle and is injected into the mold. The melt is forced into the mold in two or three stages: Stage 1: Fill stage o During this stage, the mold cavities are filled with molten resin. As the material is forced forward, it passes over a spreader, or torpedo, within the barrel, which causes mixing. This stage is determined by an injection velocity (rate), a pressure, and a time. Injection velocity is the rate at which the plunger moves forward. Stage 2: Pack stage o As the melt enters the mold, it cools and introduces shrinkage. The pack stage is necessary to force more melt into the mold to compensate for shrinkage.
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ME350 Injection Molding Background Information

Stage 3: Hold stage o When no more material can be forced into the mold, melt can still leak back through the gate. The hold stage applies forces against the material in the cavity until the gate freezes to prevent leaking of the melt. In some machines, pack and hold are combined into a single second or holding stage.

Thermal degradation Flash Temp. Shortshot Pressure

Figure 3 - Processing window for injection molding. Each stage is governed by a particular pressure and time duration, as can be seen in Figure 4: Once the mold is filled and packed and the gate has frozen off, the injection molding machine switches to the cooling stage. The amount of the cooling is determined by the cooling time. After the cycle is complete and before the next cycle can be run, the machine must be purged per directions in the manual. (Injection Molding Handbook 1-150)

Melt

Figures 4 (a) Typical Pressure and (b) Temperature cycle of injection molding.
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ME350 Injection Molding Background Information

4.1 Mold Design
Designing a mold is a very complicated and important part of the injection molding process. When designing a mold, the designer needs to take many factors into account in addition to the actual shape of the mold. Warpage, shrinking, venting, residual stress and runner size are just a few of the factors that must be weighed while in the design stage.

4.2 Warpage
Warping is caused by differential shrinkage. If one area of the molding has a different level of shrinkage from another area, the part will warp. Another cause is a variation in the amount of melt pack between areas of the mold. If cooling around the sprue takes longer than around the edge, then differential cooling will cause the part to warp.

4.3 Shrinkage
Two different forms of shrinkage must be considered when designing a part and selecting materials. The first shrinkage occurs when the part is cooling, called mold shrinkage. The second form of shrinkage occurs later, called after-shrinkage. This shrinkage has a higher dependence on material, as some plastics are much more stable than others after aging. Lower shrinkage usually correlates to a greater stability, while higher shrinkage makes accurate tolerance of parts almost impossible. Mold design is a crucial factor in reducing and predicting shrinkage. The main considerations in design are adequate cooling, proper gate size and location, and structural rigidity, with cooling conditions being the driving factor. Slow cooling increases shrinkage by giving resin molecules more time to reach a relaxed state. In crystalline materials, longer cooling times lead to a higher level of crystalline, which in turn accentuates shrinkage (Injection Molding Handbook 721). Proper cooling, along with having an overall melt flow analysis of how the material will react in the mold, will eliminate or allow for the control of the potential problems of shrinkage and warpage. The traditional approach to shrinkage prediction is to correlate against molding variables such as thickness and mold temperature, which is tied to particular mold geometry. For a general shrinkage prediction, it is important to correlate shrinkage against more fundamental variables such as volumetric shrinkage, crystalline content, mold restraint effects, and orientation effects.

4.4 Residual stress

Residual stresses identify the system of stresses that are, in effect, locked into a part, even without external forces acting on it. These stresses are often the result of non-homogeneous
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ME350 Injection Molding Background Information

plastic deformation arising from changes in volume or shape, or from non-uniform heating and cooling.
LDPE Acetal PP with flow PP across flow

0.030 0.0 25 0.0 20 0.0 15 0.0 10 0.0 05 0.0 00 100 120

0.030

LDPE

PP

Sh ri nkage

Acetal Nylon 6/6

0.025 0.020 0.015 0.010 0.005

Shrinkage

Nylon 6/6

PMMA
6000 10000 14000 18000

PMMA
140 160 180 200 220 240

0.000

8000

12000

16000

Mold Temperature (F)

Pressure on injection plunger (psi)

Figures 5 & 6 The Effects of Mold Temperature and Pressure on Shrinkage.

4.5 Stress concentrations

Sharp corners should be avoided when possible in design. Good design practice encourages the use of generous radii, to reduce stress concentrations. Sharp corners (especially inside corners) can cause severe molded in stresses as a material shrinks onto the corner, as well as poor flow patters, reduced mechanical properties, and increased tool wear.

4.6 Mold venting

All molds contain air that must be displaced or removed during the injection molding process. At high injection speeds, insufficient mold venting may cause considerable air compression, with slow mold filling, premature plastic pressure buildup, and burning of the plastic. Venting is accomplished by having small gaps in the mold parting lines or by creating other small channels in the mold.

4.7 Insufficient packing

Insufficient packing during the packing stage causes short shots, poor surface finish, sink marks, welds, and other defects.

4.8 Plastics
Two categories of plastics are available for injection molding: thermoplastics and thermosets. Thermoplastics become soft when exposed to sufficient heat and harden once
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ME350 Injection Molding Background Information

cooled. This process can be continuously repeated. Thermosets are locked into a permanent shape when heat and pressure are applied during forming. Reheating will not soften these materials. ***The following three sections are a condensed version of what is found in the Background Appendix. Please refer to the Appendix document for further information about this topic.***

5 Non-Newtonian Flow Analysis: How Mold Adviser (MoldFlow) Works

A variety of complex equations are used to simulate the injection molding process. These are all a function of the viscosity of the material being molded. Viscosity is a measure of the shear stress in relation to the rate of deformation of the fluid. For Newtonian fluids, such as air, water, and honey, there is a linear stress-strain relationship. However, molten polymers are non-Newtonian fluids, which are shear thinning. This means that as viscosity decreases, the shear stress in the polymer does not increase linearly with shear rate. If the mold fills completely, constant temperature Newtonian flow can be assumed because the filling pattern will not be sensitive to pressure. However, for the spiral mold, which is not expected to fill completely, pressure effects will have a significant effect. There are five main models that are used by MoldFlow which are all functions of viscosity changes. These include the power law model, the MoldFlow Second Order Model, the MoldFlow Matrix Model, the Ellis Model, and the Carreau Model. In general, MoldFlow takes material data and fits it to the best model for that material. It ) graph. To obtain high then plots a polymer curve on a log viscosity () vs. log shear rate ( accuracy results, it is beneficial to work with materials that already have specific properties entered into the MoldFlow database. The assumptions of the above models require that: Viscosity and shear rate decrease as temperature increases Viscosity decreases at a decreasing rate as temperature and shear rate increase

MoldFlow also uses the Hele-Shaw approximation, which analyzes the flow through narrow gap geometry as can be seen in Figure 7. This approximation is the standard model used to simulate polymer injection molding, where flows are assumed to be non-Newtonian and nonisothermal. Other assumptions include the following:
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ME350 Injection Molding Background Information

Flow is symmetric about the midplane, z = 0 axis Pressure does not vary in the z-direction Velocity in the z-direction is negligible compared to the in-plane velocities

Figure 7 - A narrow gap geometry example as analyzed by the Hele-Shaw approximation (Dantzig and Tucker, 2001, p. 218) With these assumptions, the Hele-Shaw approximation reduces the three dimensional steady fluid flow to a two dimensional problem. The final pressure distribution is a function of S - fluidity (or flow conductance). Fluidity is the quantity that determines the ease with which a melt can be forced through a mold. For a Newtonian fluid, the flow conductance can be defined as an integral function of - the local viscosity, and h - half the height of the gap. However, for a non-Newtonian fluid, which defines polymer flow, viscosity changes with pressure and temperature as it flows through the mold. Therefore, flow conductance, S, will also change with viscosity and a simple equation cannot be used to predict flow. Velocity dependent models are necessary in order to simulate flow. These models are used by MoldFlow in order to obtain data. MoldFlow follows an iterative time-stepping algorithm. This means that it computes the solutions to the above equations by completing successions of approximations that build on the ones preceeding in order to obtain accurate solutions. The algorithm built into the simulation program follows the steps outlined in the process below: Begin with a small part of the cavity near the inlet field
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ME350 Injection Molding Background Information

Apply boundary conditions at the current boundaries and solve to find p(x, y) Differentiate the pressure solution and find the gapwise average velocities Choose a time step t and advance the flow front to its new position by moving points on the front by x= v x t and y= v y t Repeat the cycle beginning with the second step, until the mold is full.

Because these steps require careful and accurate numerical solutions determined through an iterative process, we will let MoldFlow calculate the solutions rather than performing them ourselves. (Tucker and Dantzig, pages 217-220+ and Kennedy, page 21) Now that we have an understanding of the theory behind how MoldFlow utilizes equations to solve problems, we will take a more in-depth look at the models which it uses to simulate polymer flow.

6 Viscosity Dependent Models for Flow in Injection Molding

Because the viscosity of the polymer will change as it flows through the mold, MoldFlow must use viscosity dependent models in order to simulate the injection molding process. First, the program takes property data for the specified material and fits it to a model. The graphs below show viscosity data obtained for polymer flow at different shear rates (Figure 8) as well as different temperatures (Figure 9). These are the types of curves that MoldFlow produces when iterating solutions for polymer flow through the mold. The aim is to have one of the viscosity models given above match the observed behavior of the material as best as possible. Figure 8 is a graph of viscosity based on the MoldFlow second order model for a polymer flow. Viscosity is infinite past the no-flow temperature, which is defined to be the temperature at which the plastic material ceases to flow. This infinite flow condition occurs when the frozen layer that is being deposited on the walls of the mold becomes so large, that they meet in the center and entirely block the flow direction. As is evident from the plot, when shear rate decreases, so does viscosity, although not linearly. Figure 9 displays the fact that as temperature increases, viscosity decreases. Intuitively, this makes sense; the hotter the material, the easier it will flow. These curves also show that there is a smaller effect at higher shear rates, when the curves become closer to each other.
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ME350 Injection Molding Background Information

Additionally, it is extremely important to keep in mind that polymer flow is nonisothermal. As can be seen in Figure 10, drastically different results are obtained for isothermal versus non-isothermal flow when pressure effects are taken into account. The drastic differences between these two curves show that an isothermal approximation of polymer flow is not valid. It is for this reason that simple hand calculations cannot be formulated in order to predict the polymer flow through the mold. MoldFlow software must be used to obtain accurate predictions.

Figure 8 - Viscosity Data with No-Flow Temperature (Kennedy, 1995, p. 15)

Figure 9 - Graphs of Viscosity versus Shear Rate at Several Temps. (Kennedy, 1995, p. 10)

ME350 Injection Molding Background Information

Non-isothermal flow

Isothermal flow

Figure 10 - Pressure drop in a strip for isothermal and non-isothermal cases (Hieber and Chiang, 1992, p. 935)

7 Injection Molding Modeling Velocity and Temperature Profiles

As molten polymer flows into the mold, a velocity profile in the shape of a parabola is obtained. As the flow continues, hot material is deposited on the side of the mold walls, where it soon cools, forming a layer through which the hot polymer must flow. At the flow front, the polymer flows with an average uniform velocity. However, the flow directly behind this region is hottest in the middle and becomes colder towards the edges, where the frozen layer is forming. Thus, the velocity in the middle is faster and must slow down, while the velocity on the outside is slower and must speed up in order to reach the average velocity. This forms what is known as fountain flow. Figure 11 shows general velocity profiles for these different flow regions. Figure 12 displays a more detailed view of fountain flow.

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ME350 Injection Molding Background Information

Figure 11 - Velocity profiles for flow through a channel.

(Bay and Tucker, 1992, p.320)

Figure 12 - Shows the streamlines for the fountain flow, which is viewed from in a frame that moves with the flow front. The flow front is stationary and the mold walls appear to move to the left. (Dantzig and Tucker, 2001, p. 161) While MoldFlow is able to simulate the temperature effects on the molding process, it does not allow for the study of velocity profiles. However, another program, Orient, has the capacity to do this. As previously determined, hand-calculated equations cannot be used to accurately predict the relationships between temperature, pressure, and velocity during the filling process.

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