AUTOMATED SEARCH OF THE OPTIMAL ROBUST INJECTION MOLDING DESIGN AGAINST PROCESS VARIATION

摘要

Injection molding optimization is unique since the injection molding process is a multifaceted process offering a number of technically feasible designs for the same optimum part quality. These solutions will vary in their quality robustness to the uncontrollable process variation. Therefore, it is of great importance to consider both response improvement and solution robustness. This paper introduces a methodology for automated search of the optimal robust design against process variability. Part warpage is chosen as the quality of interest. The vvarpage characteristics obtained from the proposed model are compared with those from other conventional optimization models. Each optimized design is then simulated for small plausible process fluctuations. It is seen that the optimal robust design obtained in this study exhibits the best warpage characteristics in terms of warpage mean and deviation against this mean.