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Mold design for the assembly injection molding of a solid housing with integrated dynamic seal
Author(s) -
Frick Achim,
Spadaro Marcel
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
polymer engineering and science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.503
H-Index - 111
eISSN - 1548-2634
pISSN - 0032-3888
DOI - 10.1002/pen.24766
Subject(s) - mold , seal (emblem) , molding (decorative) , materials science , component (thermodynamics) , design for manufacturability , mechanical engineering , composite material , process (computing) , engineering drawing , adhesive , computer science , engineering , layer (electronics) , art , visual arts , physics , thermodynamics , operating system
Currently, it is not state‐of‐the‐art to mold a hard housing with integrated dynamic seal, without any postprocessing. Usually, separately processed rubber seals need to be mounted into the housing in an additional assembly step, which is time‐consuming and costly. The article deals with the mold design for the efficient manufacturing of a hard housing with an integrated dynamic soft seal, as well as the influence of processing parameters in assembly injection molding on the bonding strength, soft component properties, and sealing lip contour. Selected gating types were used to manufacture demonstrator parts and perform bond strength tests and morphological analyses. Additionally, the mechanical properties of the seal component as a function of the processing temperature were investigated. Furthermore, the contour of the injection molded seal lip was analyzed. The developed design concept allows an automatized manufacturing process of such a hybrid structure consisting of a hard and soft component. The feasibility study on the manufacturability of a demonstrator part proves a good adhesive bonding between the hard and soft component as well as a precise shape of the seal contour. A contrary dependency between bond strength and mechanical material properties of the soft component was detected. POLYM. ENG. SCI., 58:545–551, 2018. © 2017 Society of Plastics Engineers