Plastic Injection Technology

Answer: Question 2

i. Volume:
- With over 16,000 injection molders, selecting the best molder for your part can seem
overwhelming. The best place to start is by narrowing down your options based on your
volume and size requirements. Low to moderate volume molders specialize in the
production of parts under 10,000 units. Selecting a low to moderate volume molder
may be an ideal choice if you need to quickly produce a prototype to test a part. In
addition, low to moderate volume molders are perfect for applications that dont require
hundreds of thousands of parts (such as medical devices, aerospace, agriculture and
more), or bridge tooling (tooling that bridges the gap between small production runs
for market testing and full-production tooling). High volume molders specialize in jobs
requiring over 750,000 parts and typically produce parts requiring small-sized molds.

ii. Mould clamping pressure:

- When an injection mold is fixed in a molding machine and molten plastic is injected
into the interior of the cavity from the injection nozzle, a high filling pressure acts on
the inside of the cavity. Since the parting surfaces of the mold try to expand outward
due to this pressure, it is necessary to clamp the mold so that it does not open
instantaneously. It is easy to imagine that flash will be generated if the parting surfaces
open even very slightly. The force of keeping the mold closed tightly is called the
 "required mold clamping force". The unit for the required mold clamping force is N
(Newtons).

iii. Nozzle type:

- Machine nozzles are designed to be easily threaded onto the injection molding barrel.
This implies that the back end of each nozzle is customized to thread onto the specific
machine barrel for which it is to be utilized. Thus, each nozzle tends to be utilized with
one particular type and size of injection molding press. Some machine nozzles are of
single-piece construction, which may result in less expense initially. Other nozzles are
of modular design and construction, which commonly offers separate components for
the nozzle body, machine interface, and mold interface. Modular designs offer a
number advantages, the primary one being the ability of a single nozzle body to
interface with multiple injection barrels and multiple molds.
iv. Injection mechanism:
- Injection molding machine molds can be fastened in either a horizontal or vertical
position. The majority of machines are horizontally oriented, but vertical machines are
used in some niche applications such as insert molding, allowing the machine to take
advantage of gravity. Some vertical machines also don't require the mold to be fastened.
There are many ways to fasten the tools to the platens, the most common being manual
clamps (both halves are bolted to the platens); however hydraulic clamps (chocks are
used to hold the tool in place) and magnetic clamps are also used. The magnetic and
hydraulic clamps are used where fast tool changes are required. The person designing
the mold chooses whether the mold uses a cold runner system or a hot runner system
to carry the plastic from the injection unit to the cavities. A cold runner is a simple
channel carved into the mold. The plastic that fills the cold runner cools as the part
cools and is then ejected with the part as a sprue. A hot runner system is more
complicated, often using cartridge heaters to keep the plastic in the runners hot as the
part cools. After the part is ejected, the plastic remaining in a hot runner is injected into
the next part.
v. Backflow prevention ring
- A backflow preventer at the end of an injection molding worm has a pressure ring
which abuts directly upon the worm and serves a shank of the valve head which also
bottoms in a bore upon the worm so that force transmission to the worm is over its
entire cross section. The shank is surrounded by a blocking ring which can shift in its
axial stroke between a position in which it abuts the head and a position in which it
abuts the pressure ring, the axial stroke being adjustable by shims forming the floor
against which the shank abuts within the bore of the worm.