TY - JOUR
TI - Optimization and application of temperature field in rapid heat cycling molding
AU - Hao Mingliang
AU - Li Haimei
JN - Thermal Science
PY - 2022
VL - 26
IS - 2
SP - 1985
EP - 1997
PT - Article
AB - The rapid thermal cycle molding belongs to the injection mold temperature control system which is helpful to improve moldability and enhance part quality. Despite many available literatures, rapid thermal cycle molding does not represent a well-developed area of practice. The challenge is the uneven distribution of temperature in the cavity after heating, which mostly leads to defects on the surface of the products. In order to obtain uniform cavity surface temperature distribution of rapid thermal cycle molding, the power of heating rods of the electric-heating system in an injection mold was optimized by the response surface method in this work. The proposed optimization result was applied to design a complex rapid thermal cycle molding injection mold with side core-pulling, holes, and different thickness of an automotive part to verify its effectiveness by injection molding. Compared with initial design, the mold temperature uniformity was remarkably improved by 79%. Based on the optimization and injection molding numerical simulation results, the workable molding process to weaken the weld-lines effects on the quality was suggested and the practical injection molded parts were well produced