RAPID MOLD HEATING BY INDUCTION HEATING AND ITS APPLICATION TO THIN-WALL INJECTION MOLDING

摘要

The present study covers a theoretical and experimental investigation of induction heating in order to rapidly raise the mold temperature. Through the coupled Finite Element (FE) simulation, it is observed that the mold surface temperature is raised up to 200°C in 3 seconds. This induction heating is applied to injection molding of a flexspline for a plastic harmonic drive, which has difficulty in cavity filling because its minimum thickness is only 0.35 mm. The induction heating is then successfully implemented on the ultra-thin wall molding by raising the mold surface temperature around the glass-transition temperature of the molding material.