Numerical Study on Uncertainty Effects in Injection Molding

Injection molding is one of the most widely used processes to manufacture polymer parts, but due to uncertainties in material and process, the part quality scatters, which leads to a raising of safety factors and therefore to inefficient material use. Although current simulation approaches predict the manufacturing process and resulting part behavior quite well, the approaches are deterministic, and the simulated material is based on average data in most cases. This work presents an approach for fast approximation of cavity pressure under the consideration of uncertainties in material state and process temperatures. The approach is based on interpolation and superposition of a few process simulations and enables fast data creation for uncertainty studies. The results are in good agreement with deterministic simulations and experimental data.