Párizs RD, Török D, Ageyeva T, Kovács JG. Multiple In-Mold Sensors for Quality and Process Control in Injection Molding.
SENSORS (BASEL, SWITZERLAND) 2023;
23:1735. [PMID:
36772775 PMCID:
PMC9920048 DOI:
10.3390/s23031735]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/09/2023] [Revised: 01/27/2023] [Accepted: 02/01/2023] [Indexed: 06/18/2023]
Abstract
The simultaneous improvement of injection molding process efficiency and product quality, as required by Industry 4.0, is a complex, non-trivial task that requires a comprehensive approach, which involves a combination of sensoring and information techniques. In this study, we investigated the suitability of in-mold pressure sensors to control the injection molding process in multi-cavity molds. We have conducted several experiments to show how to optimize the clamping force, switchover, or holding time by measuring only pressure in a multi-cavity mold. The results show that the pressure curves and the pressure integral are suitable for determining optimal clamping force. We also proved that in-channel sensors could be effectively used for a pressure-controlled SWOP. In the volume-controlled method, only the sensors in the cavity were capable of correctly detecting the end of the filling. We proposed a method to optimize the holding phase. In this method, we first determined the integration time of the area under the pressure curve and then performed a model fit using the relationship between the pressure integral and product mass. The saturation curve fitted to the pressure data can easily determine the gate freeze-off time from pressure measurements.
Collapse