A New Smart Web Platform for Plastic Injection Molds in Industry 4.0 Environments

Nowadays, plastic injection molding is the most widespread manufacturing method in the industry [1, 2]. With a conventional approach injection mold design is still performed empirically, based on the experience of the mold designer. The dimensioning tasks of the different mold components are highly dependent upon the knowledge of how the different geometrical and technological mold parameters interact with each other. In addition, mold designing requires highly qualified engineers from different disciplines. CAD designers deal with the dimensioning and modeling of each part, technicians in rheological simulation validate mold design in terms of time cycle and part quality, and mechanical engineers ensure the structural integrity of the mold. On the other hand, in order to design and simulate the mold each designer requires specific software which the company must acquire. Due to diversified complications of mold design with mold manufacturing and the coupling effects of plastic with molding machine, it is quite difficult to consistently molding the products with higher quality and precision. Even with high-end commercial software and hardware, the seamless integration of mold design, mold manufacturing and molding process needs innovative thinking [3]. Cyberphysical systems in industrial processes are characterized by their ability to connect the physical devices that compose it with ICT systems capable of accessing and processing the set of technological data obtained from the process.

This paper presents a new smart application integrated into a web platform. The new application differs from other mold designing applications in that it only requires the CAD model of the plastic part in a discrete format, the precision of the analysis, the thermoplastic material of the plastic part and the number of parts to be manufactured per year as application inputs. With only this information, and through a fully automated process based on the use of several hybrid algorithms developed by the authors, the platform generates a complete CAD design of the injection mold associated with the plastic part under analysis. The set of developed algorithms are compound of a first phase of automated recognition of the plastic part surface and a second phase of expert optimization for mold dimensioning. As a result the mold design meets the geometric, technological and functional requirements being capable of guaranteeing an adequate and accurate manufacture of the plastic part. The application provides in a few minutes a standard CAD design in parametric format of the injection mold. The smart application is valid for any CAD format in which the plastic part has been modeled since it works in a discrete format. On the other hand, the algorithms for obtaining the mold designing can be applied in any CAD system, being independent of the model and the modeler. Thus, the presented application differs from other software linked to the CAD format of the model which requires access to the internal information of the part. The new platform is the first one capable of working completely autonomously and intelligently, performing the complete process of optimal dimensioning and mold design without requiring, at any time, mold designer interaction during the process. Furthermore, the design of the resulting mold does not require numerical simulations for functional validation, since the expert calculation algorithms incorporate technological requirements that guarantee the correct performance of the mold. The application is designed for future implementation in an Industry 4.0 system that allows analyzing the deviations in the manufacturing parameters of the product.

The injection molding smart platform generates a technological report that includes the results obtained for each geometric-expert hybrid algorithm [4‐7, 8] and, in turn, the CAD modeling of the injection mold with the assembly of the elements which comprise it. The geometry of the study case and the result of the algorithm of the demoldability analysis is shown in Fig. 3a. As can be seen, the case study requires of two longitudinal slides along the X and Y coordinate axes for its manufacture. Figure 3b shows the location on the ejection map of the ejection points of the plastic part. Figure 3c shows the distribution of the cooling channels on the geometries of the plastic parts under study. The cooling system design obtained by the presented platform is dimensioned under three conditions: obtaining a uniform distribution of the exchange of heat flow between the melt plastic flow and the cooling system, guaranteeing that the difference between the heat flow provided by the melt plastic flow and the heat evacuated by the cooling system is zero and maintaining the cooling flow throughout the cooling system in turbulent conditions. In order to validate the final quality of the plastic parts of the case studies and the sizing and design of the cooling system. Figure 3d shows the results of the algorithm for the location of the injection point for each study case presented. Finally, Fig. 4a shows the temperature map after the cooling phase for each one of the plastic parts of the study. The temperature map of the plastic parts is uniform and homogeneous. It is thus demonstrated that the cooling quality, of the results obtained by this algorithm, is high. Figure 4b shows the CAD model of the injection molds of the plastic parts under study.

The work presented in this document shows a new smart web platform for the automated design of plastic injection molds based on geometrical-expert optimization algorithms. The presented smart platform has been tested through its application to a plastic part obtaining in a fully automated way a CAD model of the mold to manufacture the plastic part. The results obtained are presented as a basis for the implementation of a 4.0 platform in the molding industry.

The presented injection molding smart platform improves the mold design applications used up to now, since the resulting mold fulfills all the geometrical, functional and technological requirements of the mold independently of the use of CAE simulation software. Unlike other applications, it does not require additional information or the interaction of the designer during the process of analysis, sizing and design of the mold. The new platform is valid for any CAD format in which the plastic part has been modeled, since it works in a discrete format. It functions independently of the CAD modeler used to model the plastic part and without requiring access to the internal geometric information of the part to be analyzed.