METHODS FOR MITIGATION OF GEOMETRIC DEFECTS GENERATED DURING POLYMER INJECTION MOLDING

Abstract

Injection molding is one of the most used processes in the polymer parts forming industry, which consists of raising the temperature of a polymeric material to its melting point and introducing it under pressure into the cavity of a mold where it is It will cool to a suitable temperature so that the pieces can be extracted without deforming. This article presents a review of the state of the art of scientific works that state techniques, methods and commercial software, used to analyze, understand and in some cases mitigate failures in the polymer injection process, which will reduce cycle times and production costs. Likewise, during the search, the polymers were delimited: polypropylene (PP), polyvinyl chloride (PVC), polyethylene terephthalate (PET) and for thermostables, acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS), since they are the ones that showed the most cases with failures in the injection molding process. An overview of the use of methods that can be used to analyze the parameters that affect the quality of formed parts is also shown, such as Analysis of Variance (ANOVA), Artificial Neural Networks (ANN), Taguchi, Response Surface Methodology (RSM). It is also presented which are the Finite Element Analysis (FEA) and computer-aided engineering (CAE) software that stand out the most in their use to better understand the physical phenomena that occur during the injection molding process.