Injection molds runner

Injection Mold Runner Filling at a Constant Flow Rate Using the viscosity data and runner dimensions used in Example 14.1 calculate the required injection pressure to fill the entire runner at a constant rate of 1.2 x 10 6mVs. 

Filling of an Injection Mold Runner of Noncircular Cross Section Consider the filling of a runner, the cross section of which is formed by three rectangle sides and a semicircle. The filling takes place at a constant applied injection pressure of... 

Zhou, Z.Y., Gu, Z. Zh., Shi, J. Y., Research on integrated design techiniques for injection mold runner system. Journal of Computer-Aided Design and Computer Graphics, 12(1), 6-10 (2000). 

Over the years the trend has been toward an increasing use of the more expensive elastomers. Concern has been expressed about the cost of waste compound when using a multicavity mold and injection molding, primarily due to the amount of elastomeric compound in the runner system. There are three approaches to overcome the problem ... 

The use of small injection molding machines with a single cavity mold. This approach removes the need for a runner system and, when using a dia-... 

The use of multicavity injection molds together with a cold runner system. The objective of the cold runner system is to prevent the runner system in the mold from curing during the molding process. The result is that the elastomeric compound held in the run-... 

Molds are used in many plastic processes with many of the molds having common assembly parts (Fig. 8-11). Many molds, particularly for injection molding, have been preengineered as standardized products that can be used to include cavities, different runner systems, cooling lines, unscrewing mechanisms, etc. (Table 3-17). 

Husky is a global supplier of injection molding systems to the plastics industry. Husky designs and manufactures injection molding machines—from 60 to 8000 tonnes, robots, hot runners for a variety of applications, molds for PET preforms, and complete preform molding systems. Customers use Husky s equipment to manufacture a wide range of products in the packaging, automotive and technical industries. The company serves customers in over 100 countries from more than 40 service and sales offices around the world. 

In addition to the process parameters, there are large numbers of factors that decide the success of an injection molding operation. Mold design, product design, position, and size of gates, type and positioning of runners, etc., are extremely important factors to be taken care of. A detail consideration regarding these factors has been discussed below [213]. 

When we injection mold small plastic items, it is standard practice to mold several identical parts simultaneously in a mold containing multiple cavities. In order to insure product uniformity, we must design runners that distribute the molten polymer evenly to each cavity. 

Injection mold designers avoid long, narrow runners in their mold designs. Why ... 

The injection-molding press was producing a part and runner system that had a mass of 2.15 kg. The mass was plasticated using a 120 mm diameter, 8L/D screw. The screw used for the process had a barrier melting section that extended to the end of the screw, as shown by the specifications in Table 11.9. That is, the screw did not have a metering channel. Instead, the last sections of the barrier section were required to produce the pressure that was needed to flow the resin through the nonreturn valve and into the front of the screw. The specific rotational flow rate for the screw for the IRPS resin was calculated at 9.3 kg/(h-rpm) based on the depth of the channel at the end of the transition section. The screw was built with an extremely low compression ratio and compression rate of 1.5 and 0.0013, respectively. For IRPS resins and other PS resins, screws with low compression ratios and compression rates tend to operate partially filled. The compression ratio and compression rate for the screw are preferred to be around 3.0 and 0.0035, respectively. The flight radii on the screw were extremely small at about 0.2 times the channel depth. For IRPS resin, the ratio of the radii to the channel depth should be about 1. 

The modified screw was placed back into the injection-molding press and evaluated for performance. The barrel temperatures were maintained at 245, 255, 260, and 260 °C for the feed zone through the last barrel zone, respectively. This temperature setting was lower than that used for the original screw. The screw was rotated at a speed of 235 rpm, and the back pressure was set so that the pressure at the tip was 10 MPa. The 0.244 kg part and runner system was plasticated in 4.2 s for a specific rate of 0.89 kg/(h-rpm). All parts produced were completely free of the splay defect. The modifications were able to eliminate the bubbles and the unmelted material. 

In contrast to multi-color and multi-component injection molding, co-injection molding uses the same gate and runner system. Here, the component that forms the outer skin of the part is injected first, followed by the core component. The core component displaces the first and a combination of the no-slip condition between polymer and mold and the freezing of the melt creates a sandwiched structure as depicted in Fig. 3.51. 

Tube flow is encountered in several polymer processes, such in extrusion dies and sprue and runner systems inside injection molds. When deriving the equations for pressure driven flow in tubes, also known as Hagen-Poiseuille flow, we assume that the flow is steady, fully developed, with no entrance effects and axis-symmetric (see Fig.5.13). 

Balancing the Runner System in Multi-Cavity Injection Molds... 

Inevitably, in multi-cavity injection molds, some of the mold cavity gates are located further than others from the sprue that delivers the melt from the plasticating unit. If the runner system that distributes the melt from the sprue to the individual cavities has a constant... 

Sample balancing problem. Let us consider the multi-cavity injection molding process shown in Fig. 6.54. To achieve equal part quality, the filling time for all cavities must be balanced. For the case in question, we need to balance the cavities by solving for the runner radius R2. For a balanced runner system, the flow rates into all cavities must match. For a given flow rate Q, length L, and radius R, solve for the pressures at the runner system junctures. Assume an isothermal flow of a non-Newtonian shear thinning polymer. Compute the radius R2 for a part molded of polystyrene with a consistency index (m) of 2.8 x 104 Pa-s" and a power law index (n) of 0.28. Use values of L = 10 cm, R = 3 mm, and Q = 20 cm3/s. 

This is only true for a hot runner system. However, in many injection molding processes the runner system is directly inside the cooled mold, and the flow is not isothermal. 

Write a ID FEM program using 2-noded tube elements to balance complex runner systems in injection molding. Compare the simulation to the runner system presented in Chapter 6. 

---