International Journal of Research in Mechanical Engineering

Volume 1, Issue 2, October-December, 2013, pp.116-122, IASTER 2013

www.iaster.com, ISSN Online:2347-5188 Print: 2347-8772

Designing and Optimizing the Parameters which affect the

Molding Process using Design of Experiment
3
Dr.A. Riaz Ahamed1, Dr.A.K. Shaik Dawood2, R. Karthikeyan
1
College of Engg, Department of Mechanical Engg, Jazan University, Jazan, KSA
2
College of Engg, Department of Industrial Engg, King Khalid University, Abha, KSA
3
Department of Management Studies and Research, Karpagam University, Coimbatore, India

ABSTRACT
In injection molding the processing condition have critical effect on the finished molded products. Since
there are many critical factors involved in this process, identification of the parameters are very important.
In this paper work the effect of various factors like Melt temperature (210 oC, 230 oC, 250 oC, 270 oC),
Injection pressure (80 bar, 100 bar, 120 bar , 140 bar ) and Cooling time (7 sec, 10 sec , 14 sec , 21 sec)
are selected for the experiment. A Plastic product polycarbonate plastic material was taken for the
experiment with optimal injection molding conditions and its tensile stress test was conducted in order to
minimize defects and increase its strength. In this paper Design of Experiment (DOE) is applied with an
attempt to optimize these parameters and to achieve good results using. "Orthogonal Arrays" (OA) is
selected to get balanced (minimum) experiments and Taguchi's Signal-to-Noise ratios (S/N), which has log
functions, they provide an objective function for optimizing and they guide in designing the input values
with accurate data analysis and provide prediction of optimum final values.

Keywords: DOE, Injection molding, Tensile strength, Taguchi, Plastic Spoon.

I. INTRODUCTION
The search for quality in the products with latest developments has made the organizations to search for a
new method with less cost. Injection Molding (IM) is a practical technique used in manufacturing industry
for mass producing of plastics parts quickly and inexpensive (Yang, H.J et al 2002). As plastic parts have
become more popular and critical in modern engineering applications, demand for quality has increased (
Bharti P.K. (2010). The principle of IM is very simple. It is a process in which a plastic material is heated
until it becomes soft and solidified to form a final product. ( Brown, R.P. 1988).

This work is done to investigate and optimize the critical parameters in PIM-Plastic Injection Molding
(Wang, W.H., and Tarng, Y.S 1998). The main factors include Melt temperature, Injection pressure and
Cooling Time with a formal application of (DOE) was applied to test in an efficient manner by using the
least amount of experiments, therefore saving resources
and time. The material used in this paper is
polycarbonate. We choose this material because this
material has high impact-resistance, optical clarity and
good electrical insulator. The property of polycarbonate
to undergo large plastic deformations with-out cracking
or breaking makes it different from most thermoplastics
(Ghazali.M.F, Z. Shayfull, N.A. Shuaib, et al (2011).
Fig 1 shows Injection molding machine.
Figure 1: Injection Molding Machine

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II. EXPERMENTATION

This experimental work has Taguchi approach which is applied for designing the combination of
selected factors ( George, P.M.,et al (2004). Optimization is done for these selected factors which
affects the injection process. This study concentrates on Polycarbonate material which was used to
produce plastic spoon with the help of injection molding machine and the strength was found by
tensile test using Universal Testing Machine with various combinations of selected factors.

Design of Experiments (DOE) is a popular method applied for inventing new processes, discovering
more knowledge about the existing processes and finally achieve optimal solution
(Phillips.J.Ross,1996). DOE usually has three processes as planning the given data, designing as per
the array and analyzing the input values for conducting the experiment so that valid and objective
conclusions can be achieved perfectly. The Taguchi approach is a DOE method used in many
industries for creating new products.

In this paper parameter design is applied, usually it has three steps:

System design: selection of objective function.

Parameter design: finalizing the levels of selected factors.
Tolerance design: evaluating the final tolerance for each selected factor level.

Taguchis specially designed method of OA is applied to select final design with an aim to conduct
few trials of experiments (Min B.H. 2003). Taguchi thus, insists the application of the loss function for
measuring the output characters which are deviating from the target. (Lee, B.H., et al 2004). The final
value of this loss function is transformed into signal-to-noise (S/N) ratio. The optimization steps are
listed in Figure 2: Steps of Taguchi Parameter design.

III. METHODOLOGY- USING TAGUCHI PARAMETER DESIGN

Step1: Identification of the Quality Character, this step has three types of quality factors as Taguchi
methodology such as the-smaller-the-better, the-larger the -better and the-nominal-the-best (Phadke,
M.S., 1989). Signal to Noise analysis is designed to measure quality character. It is usually given by
objective function equation (1).Equation (2) determines quality character.

(1)
For Larger the Better, MSD= 1 /n 1/yi2 (2)

MSD = Mean Square Deviation, yi are the response observations and n is the number of trial
(Taguchi G, Konishi S.1987) . Hence, a Larger-the-better factor was selected for this experimental
study.

Step2: Finalization of control level factors, In this study, as the controllable factors, melt temperature
(MT), injection pressure (B), cooling time (CT), were selected because they potentially affect strength
performances in plastic injection molding as shown in Table 1 with levels. Melt Temperature (MT) It
is melt level of temperature to which the plastic material to be heated. This path begins when the
material is transferred from the machine hopper into the heating cylinder of the injection unit (Rubin,
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I.I 1972). The material is injected into the mold where it travels along a runner system, through gates
and into cavity. Hence, Control of the melt temperature is essential all along that path. Injection
Pressure (IP). It is the pressure level given to fill the mold cavity (Syrcos, G.P 2003). The base
pressure is more than 96%. This is applied to molten plastic. Hence injection pressure is very
important. Cooling Time (CT) - It is proportional to square of its maximum wall thickness (Tim A.
Osswald et al 2002). For quick production, the level of wall thickness must be low and it affects the
complete cooling system.

Table 2: Table of L16 (43) Orthogonal Array

Step3- Selection of best orthogonal array design, In

an L16 (43) orthogonal array four levels of each
factor are conducted where the selection of the array
is done based on its suitability for three factors with
four Levels as in Table 2 Table of L16 (43) (OA).
The selection depends on the level of total degrees of
freedom (Roy, R.K., 1990). The four different levels
of selected factors are chosen based on the thermal
properties of Polycarbonate as shown in table 1
Levels and Control factors.

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Table 3: Optimal Factor level combinations of Experimental Trials

Step 4: Determination of Optimal Factor-Level

Combinations, The Control factor combination
was arranged as per the orthogonal array design
with 16 trials ( Ghani, J.A., et al 2004). Therefore,
an L16 (43) orthogonal array with sixteen trials was
applied. The design layout using the L16 OA is
shown in Table 3 Optimal Factor-Level
Combinations. Each single row represents an
experiment having various combinations of factor
levels.

Table 4 Cumulative values of

Experimental trials

Step 5: Cumulative interpretation of

experimental trials, Signal to noise (S/N)
ratio is calculated on the values of tensile
stress, the tensile strength of each test
specimen was done according to design
trials of OA, it is shown in Table 4. As
Cumulative Experiment trial values.

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IV. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

This work mainly concentrates on the Strength of injection molded product. For calculating S/N ratio,
higher the better quality option is chosen. Table 5. S/N ratios for Tensile Strength.

Table 5: S/N ratios for Tensile Strength

The objective of conducting the experiment is to find the largest S/N ratio. The S/N ratio of each
factor is obtained and the results of S/N ratio for each level are shown in table 6.

Table 6: Response Table of S/N Ratio for each Level of each Factor

Table 7: Best Combination of Parameters

FACTOR Values
MT-Melt Temperature(A) 250C
IP-Injection Pressure(B) 148 Bar
CT-Cooling Time 7 Sec

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Table 7 shows the best combination factor. In this case, the most significant factor that has an effect on
strength are melt temperature (A) followed by cooling time (C) and injection pressure (B). S/N ratio for
the (MT) Melting temperature at levels 1, 2, 3 and 4 is found by the average of experiments as 1-4, 5-8, 9-
12, and 13-16. Then for (IP) Injection pressure it is found by summing up the average of S/N ratios for
the experiments done at level 1(80) 1,5,9,3 , level 2 (100) 2,6,10,3 , level 3(120) 3,7,11,15 and level 4
(140) 4,8,12,16. For (CT) Cooling time it is found by average of S/N ratios for the experiments as level
1(7) 1,6,11,16, level 2 (14) 2,5,12,15, level 3(21) 3,8,9,14 and level 4 (28) 4,7,10,13. Table 7 shows the
summary of best combinations factors. The design is orthogonal and it is easy to separate the effect of
each factor at various levels.

(ANOVA) is done to find the most significant factor. The above method was applied to detect the
comparison between the factors at experimental error. When the factor effect has large difference
compared to experimental error than it is concluded that the selected factors cannot occur by chance
and the changes in the response factors can be accepted. Table 8 shows Analysis of Variance for
Tensile Strength, where F-Fratio, P (%) = Percentage Contribution, f-Degree of Freedom, S- Sum of
Squares, V- Values of variance.

Table 8 Analysis of Variance for Tensile Strength

Factors f S V F P(%)
MT 3 4.829 1.609 6.549 64.72
IP 3 0.531 0.177 0.712 7.129
CT 3 0.625 0.208 0.849 8.375
Error 6 1.475 0.248 --- 19.76
Total 15 7.461 2.244 --- 100

V. CONCLUSION

Taguchi and ANOVA techniques were used to find the effects of melt temperature, injection
pressure, cooling time on the tensile stress of polycarbonate plastic material.

In Taguchi method, S/N ratios were used for finding the optimal set of control parameters.

After optimization melt temperature is found to be the most significant factor which contributes
64.727% followed by cooling time by 08.375% and injection pressure 07.129%.

The results show that, for polycarbonate the best combination of processing parameters in terms
of tensile strength are 250 oC of Melting Temperature, 140 bar of Injection Pressure and 07
seconds of Cooling time.

The influence of all factors has been identified and believed can be a key factor in helping
mould designers in determining optimum process conditions injection molding parameters.

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