Interactive robust optimal design of plastic injection products with minimum weldlines

A new robust optimal design methodology has been developed and applied to the design of plastic injection molding products. Taguchi’s robust design method and an optimal design search algorithm are integrated with a commercial CAE simulation tool. A direct search-based optimization procedure is implemented with the considerations of process variations as well as uncontrollable noise variables. The Interactive Design Space Reduction Method (IDSRM) based on orthogonal arrays for design of experiments is developed as a general optimization tool. Using the system, designers can interactively adjust the design space during the searching process for the optimal solution based on the outcomes of the experiments. The developed methodology is applied to an industrial application: a molding process design of an automobile front bumper to minimize the weldline, a form defect of plastic parts. Compared with the initial design solution, the optimized design aided by the proposed methodology shows a more efficient and better result in terms of design robustness against process variations.

[1]  Robert A. Malloy,et al.  Plastic Part Design for Injection Molding: An Introduction , 1994 .

[2]  Chun-Sheng Chen,et al.  Investigation on the weldline strength of thin-wall injection molded ABS parts☆ , 2007 .

[3]  B. Lee,et al.  Optimization of Part Wall Thicknesses to Reduce Warpage of Injection-Molded Parts Based on The Modified Complex Method , 1995 .

[4]  S. Fellahi,et al.  Weldlines in injection‐molded parts: A review , 1995 .

[5]  William Y. Fowlkes,et al.  Engineering Methods for Robust Product Design: Using Taguchi Methods in Technology and Product Development , 1995 .

[6]  Alireza Akbarzadeh,et al.  Optimization of Shrinkage in Plastic Injection Molding Process Using Statistical Methods and SA Algorithm , 2011 .

[7]  C. K. Au,et al.  Automated Selection of Gate Location for Plastic Injection Molding Processing , 2005 .

[8]  Kevin Alam,et al.  A robust optimization of injection molding runner balancing , 2005, Comput. Chem. Eng..

[9]  Byung Kim,et al.  Direct-Search-Based Automatic Minimization of Weldlines in Injection-Molded Parts , 1998 .

[10]  Madhan Shridhar Phadke,et al.  Quality Engineering Using Robust Design , 1989 .

[11]  I. O. Pandelidis,et al.  Optimization of injection molding design. Part I: Gate location optimization , 1990 .

[12]  Mahmoud Barghash,et al.  A combined analytical hierarchical process (AHP) and Taguchi experimental design (TED) for plastic injection molding process settings , 2013 .

[13]  Jer-Haur Chang,et al.  An experimental matrix design to optimize the weldline strength in injection molded parts , 2000 .

[14]  Huamin Zhou,et al.  Computer Evaluation of Weld Lines in Injection-molded Parts , 2005 .

[15]  Yuehua Gao,et al.  An effective warpage optimization method in injection molding based on the Kriging model , 2008 .

[16]  Lin Hua,et al.  Back Propagation neural network modeling for warpage prediction and optimization of plastic products during injection molding , 2011 .

[17]  Dong-Hoon Choi,et al.  Design Optimization of an Automotive Injection Molded Part for Minimizing Injection Pressure and Preventing Weldlines , 2011 .

[18]  Siavash Gheshmi,et al.  Optimization of injection molding process parameters using sequential simplex algorithm , 2011 .

[19]  Dong-Hoon Choi,et al.  Design optimization of an injection mold for minimizing temperature deviation , 2012 .

[20]  Sridhar Kota,et al.  Use of orthogonal arrays in mechanism synthesis , 1993 .

[21]  Babur Ozcelik,et al.  Optimization of injection parameters for mechanical properties of specimens with weld line of polypropylene using Taguchi method , 2011 .

[22]  Chun-Yin Wu,et al.  Injection molding optimization with weld line design constraint using distributed multi-population genetic algorithm , 2011 .

[23]  Babur Ozcelik,et al.  Minimization of warpage and sink index in injection-molded thermoplastic parts using Taguchi optimization method , 2006 .

[24]  Suat Tanaydin.  Robust Design and Analysis for Quality Engineering , 1996 .

[25]  Hongsheng Li,et al.  Reducing the effects of weldlines on appearance of plastic products by Taguchi experimental method , 2007 .

[26]  Lin Tingyu,et al.  Optimizing warpage analysis for an optical housing , 2005 .

[27]  Changyu Shen,et al.  Gate Location Optimization in Injection Molding By Using Modified Hill-Climbing Algorithm , 2004 .

[28]  Y.-M. Deng,et al.  Injection Molding Optimization for Minimizing the Defects of Weld Lines , 2008 .

[29]  L. S. Tsou,et al.  Optimal process conditions of shrinkage and warpage of thin‐wall parts , 2004 .

[30]  M. S. Phadke,et al.  Quality Engineering using Design of Experiments , 1989 .

[31]  Mirigul Altan,et al.  Reducing shrinkage in injection moldings via the Taguchi, ANOVA and neural network methods , 2010 .

[32]  T. R. Bement,et al.  Taguchi techniques for quality engineering , 1995 .

[33]  Jianrong Tan,et al.  Multiobjective optimization of injection molding parameters based on soft computing and variable complexity method , 2012, The International Journal of Advanced Manufacturing Technology.

[34]  Shia-Chung Chen,et al.  The application of fuzzy theory for the control of weld line positions in injection-molded part. , 2008, ISA transactions.

[35]  Jong-Hun Kim,et al.  Micro genetic algorithm based optimal gate positioning in injection molding design , 2007 .

[36]  I. Pandelidis,et al.  Optimization of injection molding design. Part II: Molding conditions optimization , 1990 .

[37]  Byung H. Kim.  Automatic Mold Design Methodology to Optimize Warpage and Weld Line in Injection Molded Parts , 2000 .

[38]  Ying Xie,et al.  A study of gate location optimization of plastic injection molding using sequential linear programming , 2010 .

[39]  Sutasn Thipprakmas,et al.  Finite element analysis of sided coined-bead technique in precision V-bending process , 2013 .