10.2417/spepro.

005826

Effective control of warping

during injection molding
Ming-Shyan Huang, Shih-Chih Nian, and Chih-Yang Wu

Local mold temperature settings can be used to reduce the amount of

warpage in fabricated thin-walled plastic parts.

Injection molding is one of the most commonly used techniques for

mass production in plastic processing industries. Using these tech-
niques to produce thin plastic parts that do not warp, however, is
challenging. Plastic components may warp for several differentand
complicatedreasons. This warpage, however, is primarily caused by
variations in the level of shrinkage that occurs during the injection
process of the plastic manufacture. The completeness of thin-walled
molding is primarily affected by injection speed and pressure, but also
by the melt and mold temperatures.1 High injection speeds and pres-
sures allow effective thin-walled molds to be produced, without the
generation of a detrimentally short shot. Severe inner pressure
deviations, however, can occur along the direction of flow and cause
additional warpage. The warpage that occurs in these processes can
cause components to be produced with unpredictable shapes, and can
lead to poor assembly quality.
Conventionally, the number of injection gates has been increased as
a quick way to reduce the injection pressure required to complete mold
filling, but this method is limited. Other approaches to this problem Figure 1. Design aspects of the new cooling system for setting local
involve the use of high melt and mold temperature settings. These mold temperatures during injection molding processes. (a) The sprue-
methods are effective, but they prolong the cycle time.25 Low runner-gate system within an injection mold. (b) Cooling channels,
mold temperatures can easily cause hysteresis and additional unbal- each with a diameter of 8mm.
anced flowing behavior, whereas high mold temperatures can be used to
stabilize the filling quality.5 Non-uniform temperature and pressure
actual cooling capabilities of these methods are generally limited, how-
distributions during injection molding cause local shrinkage, and
ever, because each male and female mold plate can have only a single
the associated internal stresses can create variations in local strengths,
temperature setting.
which causes warpage.6 It has been verified, however, that the use
We have developed a new approach for setting local mold temper-
of high holding pressures and high mold temperatures can eliminate
atures during injection molding processes.16 Our cooling system can
shrinkage and warpage.7, 8 In addition, the Taguchi method and the
prevent severe warpage of an asymmetric plastic cover for handheld
analysis of variance (ANOVA) approach are often used to optimize
communication devices. The sprue-runner-gate design of our system is
process parameters and improve the level of shrinkage and
illustratedwithin an injection moldin Figure 1(a). Four fan-gates
warpage.912 Alternatively, by dynamically controlling and adjusting
with identical dimensions are positioned symmetrically to enable the
mold temperatures on the male and female mold plates, the amount of
molten polymer to flow in a balanced manner during mold filling.
warpage can be improved and the cooling time reduced.1315 The
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 10.2417/spepro.005826 Page 2/4

Figure 2. Measured warpage of the long edge of the manufactured part at different mold temperature settings. The amount of warpage in the
z-direction on the long edge of the part is shown for (left) a uniform mold temperature setting (i.e., 70C mold temperature) and (right) for local
mold temperature settings (80 and 30C) for the female and male mold plates, respectively.

Table 1. Amount of warpage during tests that were conducted at three different single mold temperature settings.

Straightness (mm)
Mold temperature Range (mm) Flatness (mm)
Right edge Left edge Top edge Bottom edge
50C 0.39 0.30 0.31 0.13 0.71 0.65
60C 0.55 0.33 0.35 0.17 0.78 0.72
70C 0.53 0.42 0.33 0.28 0.91 0.87

In this way, we are able to achieve uniform and acceptable amounts
of shrinkage at the end of the flow paths. Our cooling system, which
enables local mold temperatures to be established on four edges of a
mold, is shown in Figure 1(b).
We have also conducted a set of simulations and experiments to ver-
ify the feasibility of our methodology. In our experiments we investi-
gated a thin-walled injection molded part that was 164mm long, 98mm
wide, and had a rectangular hole (131mm long and 80mm wide) in its
center. The top and bottom edges of this part were symmetrical. The
right edge, however, was wider than the left edge, and these two edges
had different cross-sectional structures. The average thickness of the
part was 2mm, but it ranged from 1 to 3.5mm. The processed polymer
we used in the experiments was a polycarbonate/acrylonitrile butadi-
ene styrene blend polymer (PC/ABS 385) made by Chi-Mei. We also
used a high-speed electric injection molding machine in our tests. This
machinethe Roboshot i100is made by Fanuc and has a maximum
clamping force of 100 tons.
In our experiments we deformed the female plate of the mold by
0.881.0mm, but we deformed the male plate by only 0.620.7mm.
The resultant warpage on the long edge of the part is illustrated in
Figure 2. For the experiments with a single (uniform) mold temper-
ature, we set the temperature at 50, 60, or 70C. During the experi-
ments with variable local mold temperatures, however, we set the mold
temperature to about 4052C. We conducted our sampling after 40
cycles of injection molding to ensure that the data we collected was
balanced. We measured the height of each sample (i.e., the molded
part) and compared these results with the standard value. The measured
Continued on next page

warpage level results for the different mold temperature tests are
given in Table 1. The long convex edges on the outer surface of our
parts became concave on the inner surface during these experiments
because we probed the back face of the part to conduct the measure-
ments. Similarly, the short edges that were concave on the outer sur-
face became convex on the inner surface. Our results indicate that the
minimum warpage levels for these three mold temperature settings was
achieved at 50C. According to the results of our simulations, the long
edges of the parts warped upward and the short edges warped down-
ward. In addition, we found thatfor the female mold platethe local
mold temperature on the long edge of the part was higher than on the
Figure 3. Layout of local mold cooling channels for the (a) female and
(b) male mold plates.
10.2417/spepro.005826 Page 3/4
Figure 4. Profiles of the deformation in the fabricated plastic part.
Dashed gray line: For a single mold temperature of 50C. Solid black
line: For a local mold temperature setting.
short edge. Conversely, the local mold temperature of the long edge
was lower than on the short edge for the male mold plate.
The cooling channel layout we used to set local mold temperatures
during the injection molding of a portable device cover is shown in
Figure 3. To reduce the amount of warpage in the two long edges of the
part, we set the cooling channelsmarked A1 and A3in the female
mold plate with high temperatures. We gave the corresponding B1 and
B3 channels in the male mold plate low temperatures. In contrastto
reduce warping in the two short edgeswe set channels A2 and A4
(on the female mold plate) with low temperatures, and channels B2
and B4 (on the male mold plate) with high temperatures. We were able
to constrain the local mold temperature setting with the capacity of the
available mold heating devices. The actual local mold temperatures we
achieved for A1 and A3 (4952C) were hotter than B1 and B3, and
the temperatures for B2 and B4 (4042C) were hotter than for A2
and A4. We measured the straightness of each edge (0.11, 0.06, 0.19,
and 0.23mm for the right, left, top, and bottom edges, respectively)
and found that the flatness and range of the part was only 0.31mm. A
comparison of the optimal warping control that we achieved with local
mold, and conventional single mold, temperature settings is shown in
Figure 4. The deformation of the fabricated part is superior when the lo-
cal mold temperature settings were used, compared with a single mold
temperature setting at 50C (i.e., the flatness was 0.31 and 0.65mm,
respectively). Both our experimental and simulation results therefore
verify the feasibility of our local mold temperature setting approach
for the effective control of warping within thin-walled plastic parts.
We have developed a novel way to apply local mold temperature
settings for female and male mold plates during injection molding
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 10.2417/spepro.005826 Page 4/4

processes. We have also conducted a set of simulations and experiments
to demonstrate the feasibility of our technique. Our results indicate that
our new approach can be used to substantially reduce the amount of
warpage that occurs within fabricated parts, compared with conven-
tional single mold temperature settings. In our future studies we will
investigate additional ways to control local mold temperatures effec-
tively, which is crucial to finding practical uses for our approach. We
will also evaluate the effects of our temperature controls on thermal
13. P. Larpusriyakul and H.-G. Fritz, Warpage and countermeasure for injection-molded
in-mold labeling parts, Polym. Eng. Sci. 51, pp. 411418, 2011.
14. S. Chen, S. Tarng, and C. Tseng, Using pulsed cooling to reduce cycle time and improve
part warpage, Proc. SPE ANTEC, pp. 867871, 2010.
15. H.-L. Chen, S.-C. Chen, W.-H. Liao, R.-D. Chien, and Y.-T. Lin, Effects of inserts
film on asymmetric mold temperature and associated part warpage during in-mold
decoration injection molding of PP parts, Intl Commun. Heat Mass Transfer 41,
pp. 3440, 2013.
16. S.-C. Nian, C.-Y. Wu, and M.-S. Huang, Warpage control of thin-walled injection mold-
ing using local mold temperatures, Intl Commun. Heat Mass Transfer 61, pp. 102
110, 2015.

stresses.

Author Information

Ming-Shyan Huang and Chih-Yang Wu

Department of Mechanical and Automation Engineering
National Kaohsiung First University of Science and Technology
Kaohsiung, Taiwan

Shih-Chih Nian
Department of Power Mechanical Engineering
National Taitung Junior College
Taitung, Taiwan

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c 2015 Society of Plastics Engineers (SPE)