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Instructional objectives
By the end of this lecture, the student will know 1. principles of different welding processes used for plastic joining, 2. advantages and limitations of different plastic joining processes, 3. recommended designs to achieve good quality joints in polymers.
Joining of moulded plastic parts is required when the finished assembly is too large or complex to mould in one piece, requires disassembly and reassembly is necessary, and often to reduce cost to produce a single large moulded plastic component. The plastic parts about to join can be of same or dissimilar materials. Thermoplastics are generally joined by welding processes, in which the part surfaces are melted, allowing polymer chains to interdiffuse. Few important welding processes used for thermoplastics welding are ultrasonic welding, vibration welding, spin welding, and induction welding.
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Table 4.6.1
Advantages and disadvantages with ultrasonic welding of plastics Disadvantages high strength joints Large joints (>250 x 300 mm) can not be welded in a single operation. Specifically designed joints are required. Ultrasonic vibrations can damage electric components. Tooling costs for fixtures are high.
Advantages Fast, economical and easily automated. Mass production, upto 60 parts per minute is possible. Increased flexibility and versatility Possibility to join large structures. Used in health care industries due to clean welds. Produce the
consistently.
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Design recommendations for ultrasonic welding of plastics [2]. Name of the joint and its performance
Joint design
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Figure 4.6.2 Design recommendations for ultrasonic welding of plastics (continued) [2]. Fig. no. Joint design Name of the joint and its performance
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Figure 4.6.3 The movement of parts in vibration welding can be either linear or angular [2].
Table 4.6.2
Advantages and disadvantages with vibration welding of plastics Disadvantages Initial high capital cost of the
Advantages Welds are produced in short cycle time. Large parts can be welded with ease. Insensitivity to surface preparation. No additional materials are required to place between the workpieces. Parts can be welded regardless of how they processes (injection molded,
equipment and tooling compared to ultrasonic welding. Sound generation, which is typically of 90-95dB is a drawback. Generation of fine particulates or fluff at the joint line is a drawback for some end-use applications. Sometimes it is difficult to lock large workpieces into the supporting fixtures.
extruded, vacuum formed, etc.). Produce high strength, pressure-tight hermetic seals.
(3) Manufacturing of the automotive air intake manifold. The manifold is made in two or three injection molded parts and linear vibration welding is used to assemble the final manifold [Figure 4.6.4(b)]. (4) Welding chain saw motor housings made of 30% glass filled nylon, butane gas lighter tanks, batteries and pneumatic logic boards. (5) Widely used in making high quality joints in polyethylene (PE) gas distribution pipes.
(a)
(b)
Figure 4.6.4 (a) automotive instrument panel assembly (b) vibration welded automotive air intake manifold [1].
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Table 4.6.3
Advantages and Disadvantages with spin welding of plastics Disadvantages Limited to parts with a circular joint line. Protrusions on the rotatable part of the system or any eccentric part restrict the use of the process.
Advantages Simple and highly energy efficient process. Suitable for automation. Strong hermetic joints can be produced. No need of introducing any foreign material between the parts. Parts over one meter diameter can also be spin welded.
4. Breakaway stud or socket can be incorporated into the part halves for easy assembly alignment [Figure 4.6.6].
Figure 4.6.5
Recommended designs for vibration and spin welding of plastics [2]. Fig. no. Recommended joint design
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Figure 4.6.6
thermoplastic binder and, in turn, the surfaces of the parts to be joined. Figure 4.6.7 depicts a typical installation for welding the top to a cosmetics cartridge using induction welding process.
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Table 4.6.4
Advantages and disadvantages with induction welding of plastics Advantages Disadvantages Additional cost of the implant. Additional work of preplacing implant. The presence of implant can sometimes affect the mechanical performance of the joint.
Strong and hermetic pressure tight joints can be produced The implant fills molding irregularities or cellular voids at the joint interface. Multiple joints can be welded simultaneously. Welded joint can be reopened for repair purpose. Production rate of the weld joints is high.
Applications
(1) Frequently used for welding large or irregular shaped parts made by injectionmoulding, blow-moulding, rotational moulding or thermo-formed [Figure 4.6.8]. (2) Used in the manufacturing of a glass-filled PA 6 injection moulded automotive intake resonator. (3) Extensively used in sealing plastic coated metal caps to plastic bottles, joining of cross linked PE pipes, welding metal grills to the front of loud speaker units etc.
Figure 4.6.8
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(a)
(b)
Figure 4.6.9 Recommended and not recommended joint designs for induction welding [2].
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Exercise
1. What are the design recommendations for the laser welding of plastics? 2. What are the limitations in using hot gas welding for plastic joining?
References
1. M. J. Troughton, Handbook of plastics joining, William andrew Inc, 2nd edition, New york. 2. J. B. Bralla, Design for manufacturability handbook, McGraw hill handbooks, 2nd edition, New York.
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