Additive Manufacturing Assignment Solution

Introduction

Plastic is one of the most used material in the world. It is cheap and long lasting and so is used for many applications throughout in almost every field. This has led to the need for mass production of the plastic parts and many techniques are used for it. Of many techniques, Injection moulding is the most popular technique for this purpose. The benefits of Injection moulding are:

• It is a fast process
• It requires less labour and saves on cost
• It can be used to produce parts with high strength components
• It is flexible and so can be used to produce parts of different shapes
• The part produced has good surface finish

But Injection moulding requires a very accurate design of the mould and the type of material used. Some of the considerations that are required while choosing plastic injection moulding process are:

• The Shape of the part
• The features on the part
• Material used for the part
• Material of the mould
• Properties of the moulding machine

So, choosing a proper material of the part to be mould and proper shape of the mould would give perfect results and good product.

There are 3 types of cooling channels used for the process

1. Automatic cooling channel
2. Conformal Cooling Channel
3. Conventional Cooling Channel

So to analyse and compare which is the most suitable for the part, we use different software for that. The most used software for that is Autodesk Simulation Moldflow Insight (ASMI). It is easy to use and it very reliable considering the amount of considerations it takes while doing the analysis. 

About the Software

The software is a registered Trademark product of Autodesk and is one of the most widely used software for the analysis of injection moulding process. The benefits of using this software are:

• Helpful Design Adviser
• Wide Range of Material selection for analysis
• Enhanced structural Simulation of plastic parts
• Realistic Defect Visualisation
• Higher Accuracy and Speed of Simulation
• Improved Support for Larger Models

Scope of the Project:

For our project, we have to select a small part which can be easily injection moulded and to check the comparison of the above stated 3 types of cooling channels in terms of warpage and shrinkage analysis by doing ‘Cool+fill+pack+warp’ analysis.

Part Selection

We have selected a Pen-Holder as our part. We will do all the analysis on this part and would compare and check which type of cooling channel is most suitable for the part. Our is hollow from inside. From the outside, it has 4 ribs which are given from the aesthetics point of view. There is a small hollow circular gap throughout between the outside and inside cylinder as shown in the picture. The part size is stated as below.