Bonding Integrity of Hybrid 18Ni300-17-4 PH Steel Using The Laser Powder Bed Fusion Process For The Fabrication of Plastic Injection Mould Inserts

Laser powder bed fusion (LPBF) is a metal additive manufacturing (AM) process for fabricating high-performance functional parts and tools in various metallic alloys, such as titanium, aluminium and tool steels. The process can produce geometrically complex features such as conformal cooling channels (CCC) in plastic injection mould inserts to improve cooling efficiency. A recent attempt using a hybrid-build LPBF AM technique to fabricate aluminium mould inserts with CCC attained a substantial reduction in processing time, making it an attractive alternative method to the mould-making industry. Also, the successful bonding of aluminium powder with wrought aluminium alloys proved the practicability of this concept. This study further investigates whether a similarly successful outcome could apply to tool steel since tool steel is the preferred material for constructing high-grade high-volume plastic injection moulds. In this investigation, hybrid 18Ni300 powder-wrought 17-4 PH steel parts were additively fabricated using the hybrid-build LPBF technique, followed by various post-build heat treatments. The mechanical and metallurgical properties of the samples’ bonded interface were examined. Microstructure analysis revealed homogenous powder-substrate fusion across the interface region. Results from tensile tests confirmed strong powder-substrate bonding as none of the tensile fractures occurred at the interface. A direct post-build one-hour age-hardening treatment achieved the best combination of hardness, tensile strength, and ductility. The overall result demonstrates that hybrid-built 18Ni300-17-4 PH steel can be a material choice for manufacturing durable and high-performance injection mould inserts for high-volume production.

Design and construction of a sensor analytic system for the monitoring of the parameters of a plastic injection mould

PurposeValues of parameters such as temperature, humidity, number of plastic products and the location of plastic injection moulds are required to determine the efficiency of plastic injection moulds with a view to improving the quality of the outputs. This article determined the appropriate sensors for the measurement of these essential parameters in the most suitable form of representation of the data to aid a proficient analysis of the data.Design/methodology/approachThe outputs of these sensors were obtained by connecting the sensors to the general-purpose input/output (GPIO) pins of a Raspberry Pi and writing a Python programme for the connected GPIO pins. The values of the outputs of these sensors were represented in a graphical form. The connection of the Raspberry Pi and the sensors were done with a full-sized breadboard and jumper wires. A computer-aided design (CAD) of the connections was produced using Fritzing software.FindingsThe appropriate sensors determined are MLX90614 infrared thermometer sensor, DHT11 humidity sensor, pixy2 vision sensor and Neo-6m GPS sensor. This study proposed that the sensors analytic system be applied on an industrial plastic injection mould to measure and display the various parameters of the injection moulds for the purpose of understanding and improving the performance of the injection mouldOriginality/valueAn electronic system that provides the continuous values of essential parameters of a plastic injection mould in operation.

Designing an Injection Mould Using Advance CAD-CAM Programs

This paper presents the design of plastic injection mould for producing a plastic product. The plastic part was designed into two different types of product, but in the same usage function. The mould was designed using the CAD program ProEngeneering Wildfire 3.0 and the DepoCam software was used to simulate the manufacturing time. The execution of the mould and the experiments were done at a private factory. Designing and simulating an injection mould before actually producing it is very useful in order to save time and cut manufacturing costs

PRODUCT AND TOOLING DESIGN OF SLANTED GLASS INJECTION MOULD FOR VISUALIZATION OF FLOW MOLTEN PLASTIC

A two-plate plastic injection mould having a new method of embedded slanted glass at mould cavity side is designed where it can be used to visualize the flow of molten plastic material moving inside the mould cavity. Due to observation of molten plastic materials cannot be done in actual mould made from metal, therefore slanted glass mould is developed. This project shows the design process of slanted glass mould from initial plastic product design until mould tooling design. The plastic product and the slanted glass mould were designed using SolidWorks software. In designing and producing the injection molded plastic product, various factors are needed to be considering such as corner radius, draft angle and the product wall thickness Two different geometrical shapes of plastic products have been designed that were the flat and ring plastic product. Meanwhile for mould tooling design, the method to capture the flow pattern of molten plastic materials is the most considering factor in this project. Others considering factors included are location of feeding system, tolerance fitting and water cooling system. Thus, this project helps mould designer the important of design process should be considered during plastic design and tooling design especially for slanted glass injection mould.