Polyplastics Co., Ltd., a leading global supplier of engineering thermoplastics, has developed unique CAE analysis technology that predicts the occurrence of vacuum voids in injection-molded products made of DURACON (R) POM. This new CAE tool can predict the risk of voids forming before creating the mold, thus helping to reduce trial samples, shorten the development cycle, and reduce energy usage.
Polyplastics’ void prediction technology takes into consideration changes in variables, including temperature and pressure during the resin solidification process when using DURACON (R) POM. This technology verifies the shape, molding conditions, and effects of changes in the gate position in advance, and visualizes the size of voids as well as the positions in which they form.
One type of molding defect is hollow pockets, called voids, which form near the center of thick injection-molded products. Parameters such as volume shrinkage, which is produced as output from flow analyses, had conventionally been used for void prediction, but the accuracy of this method has been problematic since the actual phenomenon can’t be re-created.
The new void prediction technology is an entirely new method that links flow analysis with structural analysis to predict the formation of voids according to strain arising inside molded products, taking into consideration mold shrinkage, elastic modulus, and distribution of pressure in the resin solidification process. Since it can predict voids with high accuracy before the mold is built, the technology promises to reduce the development cycle, cut down on product development costs, and reduce energy consumption for simulations.
Polyplastics is offering the new technology as part of its overall technical support for current POM customers.