Study on One Dimensional Numerical Simulation in Filling Stage of Water-assisted Injection Molding

Water assisted injection molding is a pretty novel way to fabricate hollow or more complicated parts. Its molding window and process control are more critical and difficult since additional processing parameters are involved. A simulation model for the filling stage of a pipe cavity during short-shot water assisted injection molding was proposed. The finite element/finite difference/control volume methods were adopted for the numerical simulation. A numerical study, based on the single factor method, was conducted to characterize the effect of different processing parameters on the short shot water-assisted injection-molding of thermoplastic composites, including short-shot size, melt temperature, mold temperature, water temperature and water pressure. For the factors selected in the simulations, short-shot size was found to be the principal parameters affecting the water penetration length while melt temperature, mold temperature, water temperature, water pressure were found to have little effect on the penetration of water.