Modeling and Analysis of Injection Moulding Process Parameters for Plastic Gear Industry Application

The performance of plastic gears in wide variety of power and motion transmission applications is rather limited due to weak mechanical properties and divergent mechanism of failures. A methodical simulation is carried out to analyze the gear performance with various gating system types, gate locations, and processing parameters via grey-based Taguchi optimization method. With the obtained optimum results in simulation stage, the flow patterns of polymer melt inside the mould during filling, packing, and cooling processes are studied and the plastic gear failures mechanism related to processing parameters are predicted. The output results in the future can be used as guidance in selecting the appropriate materials, improving part and mould design, and predicting the performance of the plastic gear before the real process of the part manufacturing takes place.