Micro Injection Molding of Thin Walled Geometries with Induction Heating System

To eliminate defects and improve the quality of molded parts, increasing the mold temperature is one of the applicable solutions. A high mold temperature can increase the path flow of the polymer inside the cavity allowing reduction of the number of injection points, reduction of part thickness and moulding of smaller and more complex geometries.

The last two aspects are very important in micro injection molding. In this paper a new embedded induction heating system is proposed and validated. An experimental investigation was performed based on a test geometry integrating different aspect ratios of small structures. ABS was used as material and different combinations of injection velocity, pressure and mold temperature were tested.

The replicated test objects were measured by means of an optical CMM machine. On the basis of the experimental investigation the efficacy of the embedded induction heating system with respect to improvement of replication quality, reduction of injection pressure and injection velocity as well as reduction of cycle time has been verified.