• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2001.06c
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• pp.621-626
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• 2001

Microcellular foaming process was developed at MIT in 1980's to save a quantity of raw materials and improve mechanical properties. There are many process variables in appling microcellular foaming process to the conventional injection molding process. Of all process variables, part dimension control and shrinkage are the most influential on the post molded dimension. The post molding dimensional change of thermoplastic resins is important to tool designers for predicting the specific difference of molded part vs. actual mold cavity. Generally, articles injection molded are smaller in size than the cavity; hence, the term shrinkage factor is used to define the allowance a designer specifies. It is important to consider the factors that influence molded part dimension. According to ASTM Designation: D 955, shrinkage from mold dimensions of molded plastics was measured. In injection molding, the difference between the dimensions of the mold and of the molded article produced therein from a given material may vary according to the design and operation of the mold. In this paper, shrinkage data of molded plastic parts was obtained. It can be an important information for designing optimum mold system in a microcellular foaming injection molding process.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 2004.10a
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• pp.491-495
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• 2004

The industries use polymer materials for many purposes for they have many merits. The costs of these materials take up too great a proportion of the overall cost of products that use these materials as their major material. It is advantage for polymer industries to reduce these costs. The microcellular foaming process was developed in the early 1980s to solve this problem and proved to be quite successful. Microcellular foaming process uses inert gases such as $CO_2$, $N_2$. As these gases solve into polymer matrices, many properties are changed. The microcellular foaming process makes the glass transition temperature of polymers to low, and diminish the residual stress of polymer matrices. Besides, the microcellular foaming process has several merits, impact strength elevation, thermal insulation, noise insulation, and raw material saving etc. This characteristic of microcellular foaming process has influenced by cell morphology. The cell morphology means cell size and cell density. The cell morphology has influenced by many factors. The examples of factor are pressure drop rate, foaming temperature, foaming time, saturation pressure, saturation time etc. Among their factors, pressure drop rate is the most important factor for cell morphology in microcellular foaming injection molding process. This paper describes about the cell morphology change in accordance with the pressure drop rate of microcellular foaming injection molding process.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 2001.04a
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• pp.341-345
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• 2001

New technoloty called microcellular foaming process was developed at MIT in 1980's. Although it has many good things, it could not be used it all sides of manufacturing plastics. Because it takes a long time for making foamed goods. So microcellular foaming injection molding process appeared to solve this problem. The first purpose of this research is to measure the impact strength as foaming magnitude of microcellular foamed plastics. There are two methods such as batch process and microcellular foaming injection molding process in making foamed plastics. According to the experimental data, the impact strength of each specimen was measured to find out the influence of foaming magnitude of microcellular foamed plastics.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 2005.06a
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• pp.1630-1635
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• 2005

The microstructure of the parts made by the microcellular injection molding process influence properties, including impact strength, tensile strength and density of material. Microstructure of microcellular plastics is divided into core foaming region and solid skin region. Core foaming region is influenced by pressure drop rate, viscosity and cell coalescence. However, actual mechanism of the skin layers is not known despite its importance. The study on the skin layer is getting important because foaming rate of the plastics is determined by the thickness ratio of the skin layer. Especially in case of large molded part, control of the skin layer is needed because skin layer thickness is changed largely. Therefore it is necessary to study variation in skin layer thickness with processing parameters. In this paper, the influence of temperatures in the mold cavity on the skin layer s thickness was also addressed. In addition, the relationship between the temperature distributions across cavity of the mold with impact strength on parts made with the microcellular injection molding process was addressed. In addition, the method to predict the variation in skin layer thickness with mold temperature is discussed.

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2001.06c
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• pp.414-419
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• 2001

Microcellular foamed plastic is a foaming technology that is safer to the environment and has no significant deterioration of mechanical properties compared to the conventional foamed plastic. Currently, the development of the injection-molding machine for microcellular plastic (MCP) is nearing completion. Currently, researches on the mass production system for the MCP injection-molding machine are under progress. The purpose of this paper is to design the gas supply system suitable for microcellular foaming in the injection-molding machine. For the design process, Axiomatic Approach, a powerful tool for design, will be used.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.29 no.5 s.236
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• pp.647-654
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• 2005

This research Proposes a Process design of injection molded microcellular plastic gears for enhancing the fatigue strength/durability and accuracy of the gears applying thermodynamic instability to microcellular foaming process. To develop the injection molded plastic gears by way of microceliular process, it is absolutely necessary the following two process design. The first is microcellular forming process for enhancing the strength/durability of plastic gears. To be microcellular process succeeded, based on the microcellular principle, mechanical apparatus is designed where nucleation and cell growth are to be generated renewably. The second is the counter pressure process which is mainly fur improving the tooth surface roughness and the accuracy of microcellular gears. For the former process, screw, nozzle and gas equipment are newly designed, and for the latter, counter pressure by nitrogen gas is intentionally brought about into mold cavity when injecting plastic gears. Based on the proposed process design, using gear mold, experiments of injection molding show that, in internal space of plastic gears, microcellular nuclear cells less than 5 lim in diameter have been generated homogeneously via electron microscope photos.

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2001.11a
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• pp.853-858
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• 2001

Generally, mixed materials of LDPE, EVA and foaming agent are manufactured by crosslinking foaming or chemical foaming process. Above materials were used in a microcellular foaming injection molding process. Influence of each factor such as injection type, temperature of barrel, rate of mixed materials and contents of foaming agent was estimated by DOE(Design of Experiments). As a result of experiments, injection type and rate of LDPE, EVA have an influence on foaming rate. This data can be used in field of application of LDPE and EVA.

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2004.04a
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• pp.1114-1119
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• 2004

In a foaming process of microcellular plastics (MCPs) with a injection molding, research on the viscosity change that occurs when the gas is injected to the polymer has received little attention despite its importance. The purpose of this paper is to provide the basic data required to determine the processing condition by measuring viscosity changes against the gas injection rates of the blowing agent, and to verify the influence of the viscosity change on the flow condition of polymer inside the mold at the injection process.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.17 no.10
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• pp.186-191
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• 2000

We use so many plastic products in everyday. Because polymer materials have a lot of merits including low cost and easiness of forming, they are widely using at many manufacturing industries. Microcellular foaming process appeared at MIT in 1980's to save a quantity of material and increase mechanical properties. The information about the thickness of cavity plays an important role in appling microcellular foaming process to the conventional injection molding process. It is essential to make an effective foam. The goal of this research is to measure the relation between the change of cavity's thickness and foaming magnitude made after inserting a gas. R/t is a conception that indicate proportion between radius and thickness of cavity in mold system. By means of SEM observation of side surface of cavity sample, foaming magnitude of cavity is mold system. By means of SEM observation of side surface of cavity sample, foaming magnitude of polymer in microcellular foaming process is decreasing gradually as the value of R/t is increasing. The proposed foaming magnitude changes data of polymer in relation to mold system can be applied in more extensive injection molding process, such as optimum design of mold for microcellular foaming process.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 2008.06a
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• pp.213-214
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• 2008