Title: Application of Moldflow and Taguchi technique in improving the productivity of injection moulded energy meter base

Authors: G.S. Dangayach; Lalit Guglani

Addresses: Department of Mechanical Engineering, Malaviya National Institute of Engineering and Technology, Jaipur, India ' Central Institute of Plastics Engineering and Technology, Sitapura, Jaipur 302022, India

Abstract: In injection moulding process, the productivity is largely dependent on the cycle time and its optimisation plays a vital role. Productivity improvement in injection moulding is possible by undertaking scientific moulding using the modern process improvement and statistical techniques. This paper describes the improvement in the productivity of injection moulded polycarbonate energy meter base wherein Moldflow software is used to predict the injection pressure, filling time, clamping force, etc. and the design of experiments is carried out to know the impact of various parameters on sink mark, cycle time and overall quality indexes. The experimentation is done using the predicted values obtained from Moldflow analysis and an orthogonal array is employed for optimising injection time followed by pack time and cooling time. Significant improvements are achieved in reducing the cycle time from 51.5 seconds to 42.0 seconds using the systematic optimised processing parameters and thus increasing productivity.

Keywords: injection moulding; Moldflow; Taguchi methods; optimisation; cycle time; energy meters; polycarbonate meter base; productivity improvement; injection pressure; filling time; clamping force; design of experiments; DOE; sink mark; overall quality indexes; orthogonal arrays; injection time; pack time; cooling time.

DOI: 10.1504/IJPMB.2015.070820

International Journal of Process Management and Benchmarking, 2015 Vol.5 No.3, pp.375 - 385

Received: 19 Jul 2014
Accepted: 21 Sep 2014
Published online: 28 Jul 2015 *

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