ANALYSIS OF SHRINKAGE AND WARPAGE ON FRONT PANEL HOUSING USING GENETIC ALGORITHM

Abstract

This study focuses on the optimisation of the injection moulding parameters to minimise the shrinkage and warpage on moulded parts using Autodesk Moldflow Insight (AMI) 2012 software. The shrinkage and warpage of the parts were analysed in x and y axis. Mould temperature, melt temperature, packing pressure and packing time were selected as variable process parameters. Design Expert software was used as a means to analyse and optimise the selected parameter setting in order to reduce shrinkage and warpage on front panel housing. A polynomial model using Design of Experiment (DOE) was integrated with Response Surface Method (RSM) using Centre Composite Design (CCD) method and an anticipative RSM was interfaced with an effective Genetic Algorithm (GA) to find the optimum value of process parameters. The shrinkage and warpage of the moulded parts has been reduced down to 56 % and 68 % respectively after the optimisation.

Keywords

• Injection moulding
• Response Surface Methodology
• Genetic Algorithm