Knowledge-based product planning and engineering of injection-molded parts

• Applicants: Professor Dr.-Ing. Peter Köhler; Professor Dr.-Ing. Johannes Karl Wortberg
• Subject Area: Plastics Engineering ; Engineering Design, Machine Elements, Product Development
• Term: from 2015 to 2017
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 284157356

The motivation for this project is due to the absence of an integrated approach of supporting the designer in the construction of injection-molded parts. Starting at the product planning via part design to the final optimization of the part geometry, the designer will be supported by the developed procedures and methods of this research project which combine multidisciplinary knowledge. In the context of the product planning, the designer gets the opportunity of an objective manufacturing process and material selection by the application of Knowledge-Based systems. To achieve this aim, a method in which the existing expert knowledge is stored in form of a database, the knowledge base, will be developed. By a subsequent input and by the process-based comparison of product requirements with the expert knowledge, the available manufacturing methods can be assessed and an objective choice can be taken. The created knowledge base will be enhanced by boundary conditions, which arise from the choice of a particular manufacturing process. Based on this information, material properties, that have to be fulfilled by a specific material will be proposed to the designer in order to achieve the required product properties and to allow a processing using the selected production process. Using this information, a ranking of the possible materials can be created. The selection of a specific material is carried out by the user.An additional objective of this project includes the development of an integrated product simulation in order to reduce the necessary optimization steps during the molded part design and dimensioning. Firstly, the integrated product simulation includes the Knowledge-Based molded part design. This means that the compliance with material, production, and stress-specific boundary conditions is monitored during the creation of the molded part in the CAD environment and, if necessary, a corrective intervention in the design process is possible. For this purpose, solutions for the formalization of knowledge and implementation are developed in the CAD environment. It will be implemented in the form of design and analysis features for quality assurance. The evaluation is done through the integration of design guidelines, design rules and a link to the databases which have been created. Secondly, methods for Knowledge-Based analysis of injection molding simulations are developed which enable automated rheological and cycle time optimizing part design. In the rheological design will be determined procedure based. By a knowledge-based analysis it can be detected whether it is necessary to improve the quality of the mold-filling behavior by an implementation of flow aids and barriers in the part geometry. The method for cycle time optimization of the design allows the optimization of the geometry of the molded-part to the effect that a uniform and thus rapid cooling is achieved in the subsequent injection molding process.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants