• Design & Manufacturing
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.8-14
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• 2023

In this study, basic research was conducted on manufacturing technology of thick-walled light guide a component that controls the light source of automobile lamps. As a preliminary study for manufacturing the final injection molded parts, a model for analyzing the influence of micro patterns on light guides is presented. The optical characteristics of the light guide were analyzed according to the change of the curvature radius of the micro-optical pattern, and the injection molding characteristics of the light guide according to the change of injection molding conditions were analytically evaluated. It was confirmed that the luminance uniformity improves as the R value decreases for changes in the micro-pattern R value, but it was confirmed that there are technical limitations in actual injection mold core processing and high-replication injection molding. Injection molding analysis showed that cooling channel design is very important compared to general injection molding due to thick-wall characteristics and thickness variation. It was also confirmed that the cooling channel has a great influence on the cycle time and birefringence result due to residual stress. As a result of analyzing the influence of filling time, holding condition, and cooling on shrinkage, it was found that the cooling water temperature has a significant effect on the shrinkage of ultra-fine light guide parts, and the holding condition also has a significant effect.

• Design & Manufacturing
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• v.2 no.2
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• pp.33-37
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• 2008

This paper describes the optimization of injection molding conditions to minimize sink marks. Sink marks, which refer to a small depression on the surface opposite a thick wall thickness, are often encounted in injection molded plastic parts. Part geometry, material properties and processing conditions during injection molding can affect the sink mark depth. We designed the runner system which is possible balanced filling to cavities using CAE program and then obtained optimal processing conditions by Taguchi's Robust Design technique. By actual injection molding using optimized mold and molding conditions, it confirmed that sink mark depth decreased zero compared to 1mm level in the conventional mold and process.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.25 no.7
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• pp.111-115
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• 2008

This paper describes the optimization of injection molding conditions to minimize sink marks. Sink marks, which refer to a small depression on the surface opposite a thick wall thickness, are often encounted in injection molded plastic parts. Part geometry, material properties and processing conditions during injection molding can affect the sink mark depth. We designed the runner system which is possible balanced filling to cavities using CAE program $Moldflow^{TM}$ and then obtained optimal processing conditions by Taguchi's Robust Design technique. By actual injection molding using optimized mold and molding conditions, it confirmed that sink mark depth decreased zero compared to 1mm level in the conventional mold and process.

• Design & Manufacturing
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.27-32
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• 2007

In the optical application demand for high quality lens is increasing. Plastics lenses are demanded more than glass lenses for large size lenses as well as micro-size lenses. It is difficult to apply typical straight cooling channels of injection mold to lens molding due to its non-uniform temperature distribution. In this study, we manufactured molds for plastic lenses with the conventional cooling channels and conformal cooling channels produced by the DMLS process. We evaluated cooling performance for the 2 molds by injection molding experiment. Also, uniformity of the temperature distribution was tested by infrared camera and temperature monitoring. We confirmed that the cooling performance and temperature uniformity with the conformal cooling channels is much improved from the ones with the conventional. The cooling time with the conformal cooling channels was reduced 30% compared with the conventional cooling channels.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Manufacturing Process Engineers
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• v.18 no.11
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• pp.103-108
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• 2019

The cooling rate and the uniformity of mold temperature, in the injection molding process, possess great influences on the productivity and quality of replications. The conformal cooling channel, which is of a uniform spacing from the mold cavity by the metal additive manufacturing process, receives much attention recently. The purpose of this study is to develop a mold core with a curved conformal cooling channel for a pottery-shaped thick-wall cosmetic container through the hybrid method of direct metal tooling (DMT) process. In this study, we design a mold core that contains the curved cooling channel for the container. A method that divides the cavity is proposed and the DMT process is carried out to form the curved cooling channel. The test mold core, with the curved conformal cooling channel, has been fabricated by the proposed method to confirm the feasibility of the design concept. We show that no leakage is observed for the additive manufactured test mold core, and its physical properties demonstrate that it can be sufficiently used as the injection mold core.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 2005.10a
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• pp.111-114
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• 2005

Experimental and numerical studies were carried out in order to investigate the processability and the transcriptability of the injection molding of micro structures. For this purpose, we designed a mold insert having micro rib patterns on a relatively thick base part. Mold insert has a base of 2mm thickness, and has nine micro ribs on that base plate. Width and height of the rib are $300{\mu}m\;and\;1200{\mu}m$, respectively. We found a phenomenon similar to 'race tracking', due to 'hesitation' in the micro ribs. As the melt flows, it starts to cool down and melt front located in the ribs near the gate cannot penetrate further because the flow resistance is large in that almost frozen portion. When the base is totally filled, the melt front away from the gate is not frozen yet. Therefore, it flows back to the gate direction through the ribs. Consequently, transcriptability of the rib far from the gate is better. We also verified this phenomenon via numerical simulation. We further investigated the effects of processing conditions, such as flow rate, packing time, packing pressure, wall temperature and melt temperature, on the transcriptability. The most dominant factor that affects the flow pattern and the transcriptability of the micro rib is flow rate. High flow rate and high melt temperature enhance the transcriptability of micro rib structure. High packing time and high packing pressure result in insignificant dimensional variations of the rib. Numerical simulation also confirms that low flow rate causes a short shot of micro ribs and high wall temperature helps the filling of the micro ribs.