COMPANY CATEGORY
THIRD PRIZE WINNER
Project Name: Using Mold Filling Analysis to Improve Corner Effects Caused by Valve Gate Hot Runner Systems
Company: Free-Free Industrial Corp. (Felli)
By Wei-Yang Lu, Jun-Xian Li, Yu-Tang Huang, Fu-Zheng Qiu, Jian-Xin Huang
Summary
Felli engineers were tasked with producing mass quantities of a food storage container. The development objectives were to achieve shorter cycle times and higher success rates, and to reduce the need for post processing. The part was gating with a valve gate hot runner system to reduce materials and avoid surface defects. However, the corner effect was induced by the valve gate hot runner system and resulted in unbalanced flow and caused weld lines, air traps and halo marks. Felli engineers used Moldex3D to perform a series of analyses to determine the root cause of the corner effect and validate the proposed solution, and finally able to achieve consistently high-quality production.
Challenges
- Unbalanced flow
- Air traps and weld lines
- Halo marks
Solutions
Moldex3D’s Flow and Hexa-based meshing technology enabled Felli engineers to identify flow imbalances and capture accurate, high-resolution temperature distribution in the part. In addition, Felli engineers used Moldex3D to investigate the effect of valve pins on flow balance. The simulation results matched well with the experimental results and demonstrated that the valve pin is the key to improving filling imbalances. With Moldex3D, Felli successfully identified the root cause of the corner effect and optimized the runner design to reduce temperature difference as the melt flow past the valve pin, improving the flow imbalance induced by the corner effect.
Benefits
- Eliminated surface defects
- Improved success rates by 99%
- Consistent production
Products Used
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