Effect of bottle handle design on injection molding production parameters and usage performance

Abstract

The computer-aided engineering software that performs plastic flow analysis enables the optimization of injection molding processes in a faster, more accurate, and cost-effective way instead of the trial-and-error method used in injection molding machines. In the literature, there are many studies on the moldability of injection entry point variables. In this study, unlike the literature, the synergistic effect of three different injection entry point variables such as gate location, gate concept and gate diameter is aimed to optimize the moldability and required strength values for water bottle handles. The injection moldability parameters of the bottle handles (filling time, filling pressure, temperature, frozen layer and joint line) were obtained using Moldflow Software for the optimum values of the variables of the selected High Density Polyethylene (HDPE) material. As a result of these analyses, the maximum strength values that the handles can carry at the best acceptance conditions in moldability were determined by considering the appropriate cap concept and cap diameter for the best cap filling zone. As a result of the analysis for the same process parameters, the optimum production parameters were reduced to the final two by considering the optimum parameters in breaking force and molding. Although the first design has the highest breaking force, it is not suitable for mass production due to the weight increase of 12.1%. It was concluded that the second design should be approved as it provided a 44.4% increase in breaking force while the handle weight increased by 2.1%.