OptiMold

Resource Optimized Injection Mold Design

Cornet founded joined research project of DIK and Bursa Uludağ Üniversitesi

In elastomer technology, mold-filling part production is generally associated with high energy ‎costs and waste due to partly empirically obtained process parameters resulting in defective ‎goods, whether directly seen after production or as short-runners returning from the ‎application field.‎

Hence, efforts to understand rheological effects and their characterization for rubber ‎compounds as basis for the layout of more reliable production process are of high interest ‎from a commercial view.‎
All-in-all, these problems lead to an increasing amount of energy consumption and rubber ‎waste, aggravating the environmental problems. In addition, the generation of rubber waste ‎contributes to the loss of natural resources and by a consequence to an increased carbon ‎footprint. These features are now pushing stakeholders active in rubber manufacturing to ‎reinvent their fabrication to align these production processes with the priorities of the ‎resource-consumptive- economy/industries and the policy of the European ‎Commission.‎

In this context, the 2 years OptiMold project aims at rethinking the process design of rubber ‎material production by implementing highly efficient and close-to-practice compound ‎characterization concepts allowing most reliable mold filling simulations to identify highly ‎efficient mold layout criteria and process parameters.‎

State of the Art
Recently, advanced rheological characterization methods have been developed based on ‎improved high-pressure capillary with the evaluation of the pressure dependency of viscosity. ‎This method has been proven useful in generating rheological data appropriate for mold filling ‎simulation with consideration of the pressure drop along the fill channel path and the ‎associated changes in viscosity, whereby the well-known dependency on shear rate and ‎temperature are also taken into account. Nonetheless, further investigations seem necessary, ‎especially considering the compressibility of the in-flow material and, possibly strongly ‎correlated to this, wall slippage behavior.‎

Methods
This will be achieved by investigating and developing strong-coupled rheological modeling, ‎rheological testing, mold filling simulation, and injection molding tests with advanced ‎machinery equipped with multi-sensoring for local pressure and temperature. The main point ‎is, to achieve already the rheological data by considering in-parallel occurring rheological ‎effects generally not taken into account in standard material characterization and in most ‎mold-filling simulations. Verification of the methods for industrial production processes and the ‎correlation with final part performance is essential. To ensure the consistency of developed ‎concepts, this will be validated for rheological measurement, for laboratory test molds and ‎industrial production molds, each by processing and simulation. ‎

Principal objectives and deliverables: ‎
‎-‎    Identification of improved rheological equipment and modelling for rubber compounds
‎-‎    Adaption of models into mold filling simulation to optimize the prediction reliability
‎-‎    Verification of rheological and simulative concepts by injection trials with multi-sensor ‎equipped test molds
‎-‎    Correlation of simulation with injection processing for industrial part molding and with ‎part performance
‎-‎    Recommendations for reliable mold evaluation procedure aimed for reduction of ‎defective good

 

Scientific Partners ‎Contact
Deutsches Institut für ‎Kautschuktechnologie ‎e.V.‎
Eupener Str. 33, 30519 ‎Hannover
Germany

Dr. Jens MEIER
jens.meier@dikautschuk.de

Dr. Benjamin Klie
benjamin.klie@dikautschuk.de

Bursa  Uludağ ‎University, Engineering ‎Faculty, Automotve ‎Eng. Department ‎
TR16059, ‎
Nilüfer/Bursa/Türkiye
Prof. Dr. Murat YAZICI
myazici@uludag.edu.tr

       

Ansprechpartner

Dr. Jens Meier

Telefon: +49 511 84201-28

Kontakt