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Solutions -
Injection Molding

The design of the mold for injection molded parts has a major influence on the economics and efficiency of the entire production process.  Disturbances in production processes are most frequently due to molds subjected to early wear, with poor thermal, runner and/or cavity layout, or operating outside a specific operating range due to equipment selection.  Delays in production startup can be traced to mold design and mold making machining operations. In today's environment of agile manufacturing, these facts lead to the conclusion that mold design/manufacture process needs much more attention than it receives.  Based upon expected production volumes, cavity molds must be designed from which to produce the actual parts from specific raw materials.  Assuming that the model for the part design already exists, there remain two primary steps ahead of production: cavity mold design and cutting of the actual mold.  SEAshell was retained by one supplier to develop a cavity model design model from existing CAD solid modeling data files. 

Various pop-up windows are used by the developer to capture the required input data for the mold design such as material type, expected number of molds to be produced, etc.  In the specific example shown, a ribbed or finned cylinder design is automatically converted into two cavity molds according to the design parameters entered.  The  program uses industry specific application rules as modified by the specific customer's input to design the molds and associated feed and cooling lines.  The program also provides transparent links into popular mold analysis software to insure optimum rheological  design for runners, cavity filling and cooling.   The envisioned result is a detailed set of drawings for the mold delivered to the mold makers with bill of materials, and routings for the manufacture of the mold components.  The net result is approximately a 25% reduction in the overall mold life design cycle.  The actual mold making component can now also be reduced because, with detailed drawing available, preprogrammed cutter paths can be optimized for specific machines, speeds, and feeds. 
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