6th Annual Judith Ramaley Celebration of Research and Creative Scholarship
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Poster #113 Simulation of Polymer Flow and Fiber Orientation nearby the Design Features of Injection Molded Parts
Nathan A VanRoekel, Brett J Sawyer, and Jenna M Sand
Faculty Mentor: Fariborz Parsi
Injection molded plastic materials are widely used in engineering applications due to their properties and the ability of incorporation of many parts into one therefore reducing the production time and cost. Chopped fibers (both short and long) are commonly added into the plastic materials to improve their mechanical properties. Addition of fibers introduces flow induced anisotropy of the properties due to preferential orientation of fibers during the mold filling process. It is highly desirable to predict and control the orientation of the fibers during the part design, mold making, and molding processes.
In this work, we used a commercially available software (Moldflow MPI©) to predict the flow of the polymer and orientation of both short and long fibers around commonly used design features in an injection molded part. The guidelines attained in this study will help the in design of the mold and part and the selection of processing conditions. |
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