In general, rubber parts used in automotive applications are designed and manufactured without any inserts; it is significant, however, that for certain parts, such as an engine mounting that, the metal core must be used to increase the compressive strength of products. With the lack of numerical tools used to predict the rubber flow characteristics and the interaction between rubber and metal insert during the molding process, mold designers must rely on their experience and the trial-and-error method to design molds. Therefore, in this research, an application of CAD/CAM/CAE on the design and manufacturing of an injection mold for the engine mounting rubber made of a blend of Natural Rubber (NR) and AcryloNitrile-Butadiene Rubber (NBR) is performed. A CAD model of the part is constructed and then a two-cavity mold as well as various runner patterns and gate positions are designed and further analyzed using CAE. Subsequently, with use of the CAM system, a metal-inserted mold and related components are manufactured and used to produce the rubber engine mounts on the vertical rubber injection machine. The empirical and numerical resulting parameters, including part geometry, injection pressure, and part temperature at various injection stages, correlate well. This information provides mold designers and manufacturers a better understanding of the rubber behavior during curing in the metal-inserted rubber molding process so that various mold components can properly designed and effectively used. Consequently, better mold and product quality with less defects as well as reduced production time can be obtained.

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With a recent growth in the demand of the rubber products globally, the latest technology is adopted to improve the design and manufacturing of those rubber products in term of part quality and production lead time and cost. The cold runner system is one of the technologies which can assist in unfilling part problem and raw material saving. Nevertheless, with the lack of numerical tool with an ability to predict the behavior of rubber during the injection molding process, designers still need to use their experience and trial-and-error method to design the mold and the cold runner system. Therefore, in this research, the use of CAE and a cold runner system is applied to the design and manufacturing of rubber injection molding process with a gasket mold made of SBR as a case study. The empirical and simulated results agree well and the use of raw material in the actual system is decreased by 12% shot weight which can lead to the reduced cost of products. Finally, it can be seen that the use of CAE can assist the mold designers and manufacturers to get better understanding of flow pattern and behavior of rubber during the injection process so the better part quality can be obtained.