Experiments and Simulations Related to Microcellular Injection Molding

This class is about the experiments and simulations related to the microcellular injection molding. The experiments are part of the research done at the Microcellular Plastics Manufacturing Laboratory at the University of Toronto. We will present 3 topics related to the experiments. The first will be on the visualization studies on the bubble nucleation and growth. We will examine the effects of process conditions. The second will be on the use of mold opening (core-back) for the microcellular injection molding. The third will be on the effects of bubbles on the fiber orientation in the microcellular injection molding. We will use some of the experimental results (such as bubble nucleation/growth and the mold-opening experiment) in the simulation with  Moldflow Insight software. We will discuss the correlation between the experimental and simulation results, and we will also present some case studies related to microcellular injection molding and core-back processes.