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Abstract.

The hot runner technology is an advanced & applied technology in

process of forming of an injection mold. As soon as the hot runner
technology is applied in injection molds, it will obtain the aim for
optimization of product quality, increasing efficiency of production,
saving raw materials, saving energy, decreasing cost of products and so
on. The article will mainly discusses the applied study of hot runner
technology in injection mold, and has a detailed explanation for the
design instances of hot runner technology in injection mold, the
suitability of hot runner system and the technological & economical
analyses of hot runner molds.
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INTRODUCTION TO INJECTION MOLDING

Injection moulding

Injection moulding has always been one of the most common processing
methods for plastics. Nowadays countless parts in many electrical
appliances, automobiles and office equipment are injection molded. The
most common injection moulding machinery is the reciprocating screw
machine, whose process can be divided into several stages as seen in
Figure 6. At the plastication stage, the feed unit operates as an extruder,
melting and homogenizing the material in the screw/barrel system. The
screw, however, is allowed to retract in order to make room for the
molten material in a space at the cylinder head, called material reservoir,
between the screw tip and a closed valve or an obstruction of solidified
material from the previous shot. At the injection stage, the screw is used
as a ram (piston) for rapid transfer of the molten material from the
reservoir to the cavity between the two halves of the closed mould. Since
the mould is kept at a temperature below the solidification temperature
of the material, it is essential to inject the molten material rapidly
enough to ensure complete filling of the cavity. A high holding or
packing pressure is normally exerted, to partially compensate for the
thermal contraction of the material upon cooling. The cooling of the
material in the mould often limits the production time because of the low
thermal conductivity of polymers. The mould, after being cooled, can be
opened and the solid product ejected. Although the screw machine is by
far the most popular, plunger injection machines are also used to give
products some unique features. There is no shearing or mixing action, as
a plunger does not rotate. The resulting moulded part can take on a
marbled appearance with swirls of two or more colours. This may be the
desired finish for certain products. Regardless of different machines,
injection moulding yields a high productivity and allows the products to
have many fine details such as bosses, location pins, mounting holes,
bushings, ribs, flanges, etc. All these features can eliminate many
subsequent assembly and finishing operations. A large variety of
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products can be injection molded. These include (a) micro-products,

molded in multiple cavity moulds on small precision machines, such as
components for watches and microelectronics; (b) medium size products
molded continuously in very large numbers in dedicated machines or in
relatively small runs; and (c) large products, molded by large machines,
such as car dashboard frames, TV cabinets, garden furniture, and small
boat hulls. Many of these large plastic parts have a solid skin and a
cellular inner structure, hence the process is also known as structural
foam moulding.
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Reaction injection molding

Reaction injection moulding is a relatively new process, which involves
the rapid mixing, in precise proportions, of two or more highly reactive
liquid components and the immediate injection of the mixture in a
closed mould. Polymerization takes place in the mould in a very short
period of time, yielding a solid product. The process is particularly
suited to the production of large and relatively thin parts, with less
capital investment and operating costs than in thermoplastic injection
moulding. The process is also energy efficient, but requires good control
of complex reactions. By and large, each moulding process mentioned
above has its pros and cons in terms of the materials, products and cost.
Appendix 2 presents a summary of the characteristics of each moulding
process and its applications.

MOLD PARTS
The main parts of an injection mold are :
• COLD RUNNER SYSTEM
• CORE
• CAVITY
• EJECTOR ASSEMBLY

COLD RUNNER SYSTEM:

The runner system mainly comprises of:

• Register Ring: This ensures the complete butting of the machine

nozzle to the mould.
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• Sprue Bush: The processed plastic material is transferred to the

impression from the machine through a passage called sprue. The
bush in which the passage is machined is called sprue bush.
• Runner and Gate: The material reaches the impression through the
runner and gate system.

Cavity: This is the half of the mold that forms the outer surfaces of the
part. It is characterized by the negative impression of the part carved into
the cavity block.

Core: This is the half of the mold that forms the backside of a part. In
general, the core material rises up from the core block and almost fills in
the back of the cavity. The resulting space between the core and cavity is
the wall thickness of the part that will be molded.

Parting line: This is the interface where two parts of the mold, such
core and cavity or slide and mold, come together. This term refers both
to the interface and the resulting witness line that is molded into the part.

Shutoff: This is a place where two parts of the mold shut against each
other and prevent plastic from passing through. Technically speaking,
the main parting line interface is a shutoff, but the term is seldom used in
this instance. Usually, the term applies to a situation where one part of
the mold closes against another to form a slot or hole, or it is sometimes
used to refer to the interface where a slide shuts against a core or cavity.
Sometimes, the shutoff surfaces are parallel to the direction that the
mold opens. When this happens, draft has to be added to avoid grinding
the mould parts of the mold against each other. This type of shutoff is
sometimes referred to as a sliding shutoff or a slide-by. An example of
this will be seen on the vent mold.
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SPRUE BUSH

COLD RUNNER SYSTEM

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MOLDING DEFECTS AND REMEDIES

The different molding defects and its causes and remedies are given
below:
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DISADVANTAGES OF C.R.S

Cold runner system has some disadvantages such as

• High cost of energy: In cold runner system , the component
undergoes larger cooling time. This results in longer running of the
machine to attain the production rate. Hence energy consumption
rate also increases.
• Workmanship: Since the component is ejected along with the
runner and gate , extra workforce is required for the process of
degating. Which is the separation of components from the runner
and gate manually.
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• High scrap ratio: Since the solidified runner and gate is rejected , it
increases the scrap ratio.
• Low product quality of surface appearance: Results in flash and
other molding defects.
• Requirement of high Injection pressure

HOT RUNNER SYSTEM

Introduction
Hot runner technology is widely used in all kinds of products of the
injection molding. It is the applied research and development with bright
future to develop hot runner injection mould on the economic and
technological basis depending on different category, different kinds and
different performance of thermoplastic materials. In recent years, with
the gradual extension of hot runner system, the injection products in
European and American countries are depending more on hot runner
system. Currently product of molds not used with the hot runner
technology in molding products is difficult to meet the requirements of
the customers, and this has been prompted by many mold manufacturers
of hot runner system on the transformation of consciousness. But
because the price of many imported hot runner device is quite high,
many domestic manufacturers can not accept it, which leads to
producing it by some of them. Relatively speaking, most of production
enterprise in China adopt relatively low cost of hot runner system with
generally inner-heated or out-heated hot runner device. Some production
enterprises adopt the world's advanced level of more sophisticated
needle-valve type of hot runner device with high technology and high
cost.
The type of the runner system is one of the most influential factors on
injection molding process and the properties of the injected parts.
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Conventional runner systems (CRS) have some disadvantages such as

high cost of energy and workmanship, high scrap ratio, low product
quality of surface appearance and requirement of high injection pressure.
Therefore, the mould designers are attracted to hot runner system (HRS)
which is able to provide precisely adjustable process temperature,
uniform filling in multi cavity moulds, even heat distribution within the
mould, improvement on mechanical properties of injected part, and
reduction in injection pressure. In addition, HRS allows significant cuts
in production costs by saving material as a result of eliminating sprue,
shorter mould opening distance because of the absence of sprue, and
shorter cycle time.

Applicability of Hot Runner System

Generally speaking, the hot runner technology applies only to the

injection molding, and also not each injection mold is suitable. At the
same time, it should be clearly known that none of hot runner system
cannot be applied to all of plastic materials and all kinds of injection
products. Hot runner system for certain thermoplastics is applicable, but
not applicable to another kind of plastics. Which is because the use of
hot runner system still depends on many other factors, such as: injection
quantity, injection rate, length of flow, shape of mold cavity and color
plastic etc. Table 1 lists some of the common plastics relative to the
applicability of hot runner system.

Material and
PP PE PC ABS PVC PMMA
type

Needle Nozzle VG VG POB VG POB VG

Universal
VG VG _ POB _ POB
Nozzle

VG – Very Good, POB – Possible

Comparison of the Cost Analysis of Hot Runner System

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Analysis of production cost is one of the aspects of being reasonable or

not to use the hot runner system. To use hot runner system is the
important condition of production of products. In comparison with other
production technology, the purpose of cost analysis is to determine
whether the adoption of hot runner system has good economic benefit.
Cost analysis must contain all the expense, the producer is used to face
the choice of either hot runner mold or the traditional mold of cold
runner. Only when the cost difference is less, would the advantages and
disadvantages of hot runner system become an important factor.
Practical data shows that for the cold runner multi-cavity mould, only
there are a considerable quantity of products, can it save materials and
benefit it.
Saving time and materials should be priority in the production for hot
runner system. For instance: a multi-cavity mould needs injection
forming from the front gate, such as: plastic bottle cap, spray gas cap
and cup. Below are the some examples of traditional mold design to use
hot runner system, Fig. 1 (a) shows a three-plates mold, the sprue to use
hot runner plate and side pouring nozzle, injection cycle is reduced by
35% and product cost is reduced by 40%. Fig. 1 (b), mold in the cold
sprue cup is replaced by hot runner switch nozzle, injection cycle
reduces 18% and product cost is cut down 8%.
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Experimental setup

A box-shaped part that consists of some details such as ribs, holes, large
flat surface, conical surface and rounded edge was adopted, in order to
observe the effects of runner systems on its dimensions and shape. The
main dimensions of the part are 112 · 78 · 36 mm and the thickness of
the walls is 2 mm. The drawing and the general view of the part are
presented in Fig. 1.

In order to examine and to precisely compare the effects of HRS and

CRS, it is necessary to perform the experiments at the same conditions.
Thus, a two-cavity mould which can be used with both HRS and CRS
was designed and produced. The diameter of the nozzles was determined
as 1.9 mm. Six resistances of 400W for heating the nozzles and
manifold, and four thermocouples for controlling the melt temperature
were fitted to the mould. The determination of gate location was carried
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out by utilizing the Mold Flow analysis software for both HRS and CRS,
as shown in Fig. 1. For each mould cavity, four cooling channels with
parallel connection were generated. The core and cavity halves of the
mould are assumed to have the same temperature to minimize warpage.
After completion of the experiments with HRS, the mould was modified
for CRS by assembling some appropriate components such as sprue
pulling pin and plugs for nozzle nests. Thus, the possibility of doing all
experiments with both runner systems on the same mould and
comparison of the results precisely was provided.

When using CRS, the flow of molten plastic becomes more difficult
because of the heat dissipating in the runner channels. In addition,
increase in flow length increases the frictional pressure losses. Using
HRS provides significant pressure gain by eliminating the disadvantages
of CRS. PP material was injected at temperatures of 170, 200 and
260deg C, and at pressures shown on the diagram in Fig. 4.

It was observed that significant pressure gain was provided when using
HRS. At mean process temperature of 200 deg C, e.g., the required
average injection pressure is 70 MPa for HRS, instead of 85 MPa for
CRS which means a pressure gain of 17.64%. The pressure gains at
other process temperatures of 170 degC and 260 degC were determined
as 7.5 and 20%, respectively. When considering the low peaks instead of
the average values of the injection pressure, it was determined that the
pressure gains rose up to 18.75%, 42.85% and 33.33% at 170, 200 and
260 deg C, respectively. This reduction on injection pressure allows
considerable saving in production costs and increases the lifetime of the
mould and injection machine. Pressure gains obtained when using HRS
for ABS and PP materials are presented in Table 3.
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2) Shrinkage evaluation

It has been reported that the primary influential factors on shrinkage of

an injected part are both the magnitude and duration of exerted packing
pressure. The excess shrinkage on the remote regions of the part from
the sprue is largely attributed to the reduced effect of the packing
pressure at the outer regions. There is a direct relationship between
orientation and shrinkage due to the fact that molecular chains are
oriented in line with the flow direction under the effect of friction and
elongation. This effect is more pronounced at the outer zones of the part
where the material sets relatively faster. Therefore, the sample produced
by injection moulding experiences more shrinkage in the direction of
flow.
The calculated shrinkage rates in length and width for both runner
systems vs. injection pressure at the process temperature of 225 deg C
for ABS and 170 deg C for PP are presented in Figs. 6 and 7,
respectively. According to these figures, it was observed that the
shrinkage rate decreased with increasing injection pressure for both
runner systems. This point is also stated by previous researches in the
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literature. Liao et. al. reported that the packing pressure is the most
important process parameter for shrinkage, because it becomes effective
during cooling down period whereby the material starts. Under the
condition that the packing pressure is high, the polymer can be squeezed
into the cavity to reduce and even the shrinkage. For HRS and CRS, the
average shrinkage rates in length and width for ABS and PP polymers
are presented in Table 4. These results showed that using HRS decreases
the shrinkage rates for both of the polymers in comparison with CRS. It
is interpreted that this shrinkage-decreasing effect of HRS is resulted
from more influential packing stage due to late solidification of the
gates, lower heat losses and better fluidity of the molten plastic. In
addition,using HRS makes the adaptation of central gate location
possible in multi-cavity moulds. This shortens flow length, decreases
pressure loss and contributes to achieving more influential packing
stage. In the case of using CRS, reduction in shrinkage rates requires
impractically high working pressures. For example, CRS results in low
shrinkage rate at 170 deg C for PP polymer, but it requires 120 MPa
injection pressure. Same shrinkage rate can be provided at much lower
injection pressures when compared with HRS.
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BENEFITS OF H.R.S

• Materials cost savings - no runner to regrind or reprocess

Least expensive cost / piece.
• Reduction of energy costs
Shorter, faster cycle times - no runners to cool.
• Smaller machines - reduced shot volume into runners.
• Automated processing – runners do not need to be separated from
the parts
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• Gates at the best position for economical design.

• No runners to remove or regrind, thus no secondary work needed.
• Lower injection pressures.
• Lower clamping pressure.
• Shorter cooling time.
• Shot size reduced.
• Cleaner molding process.
• Consistent heat within the cavity
Lower Cycle Time, Increase Output.

The cycle time of any mold is largely influenced by the cooling cycle
how fast the resin can be sufficiently cooled so that the part can be
ejected without permanent deformation. In any given mold, the areas
that take longest to cool are those with the thickest wall section.
injection time is another component that differs between comparable hot
and cold runner equipped molds. The injection time difference will be
the extra time required to fill the cold runner. Close and open stroke of
the press is extended with cold runner equipped molds. The travel must
be increased to accommodate safe ejection of the cold runner. Parts
molded with hot runners better lend themselves to automated part
removal. With no runner to interfere with part removal, secondary mold
processing times involving manual labor, including part/runner
separation, part trimming and packaging, are reduced or eliminated
entirely.
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Significantly Reduce Production Costs.

Although a more expensive capital investment upfront, a hot runner
system is a significantly more cost-efficient means to keep production
costs to a minimum over the long run.
Resin Savings.
Since there is no cold runner to discard or recycle, resin consumption is
reduced. Depending upon the molding application (i.e., medical
components or parts requiring FDA approval), the product may require
100 percent virgin material—increasing overall consumption.
Energy Savings
Energy is wasted plasticizing, cooling and regrinding each cold runner
that is produced. Increased energy consumption also is a direct result of
extended cycle times.
Labor Savings
Secondary operations—such as manual part de-gating and trimming—
are eliminated entirely with a hot runner system.
Mold Cost Savings
A smaller cavitation hot runner equipped mold may be able to satisfy
production quotas using a smaller number of cavities since it runs at a
faster cycle. The smaller mold frame size may enable installation into a
smaller press.
Injection Press Costs
Hot runners allow reduced injection pressures during packing, as the
system does not have to deal with injecting resin through a cooled
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runner. Melt in the cold runner may lose heat en route to the gate,
possibly requiring higher heats and/or pressures from the injection
molding machine. By reducing the injection pressure and clamp tonnage
required, it is often possible to run the same part in a smaller tonnage
machine as the clamp tonnage required is not as great.

DISADVANTAGES OF H.R.S

• There are, however, a few disadvantages to hot runner systems that

need to be considered.
• Hot runner molds are more complex and expensive to build than
cold runner molds.
• Higher initial start-up costs than for cold runner systems.
• Risk of thermal damage to sensitive materials.
• Elaborate temperature control required.
• Higher maintenance costs – more susceptible to:
o Breakdowns
o Heating element failure