Assignment – 3

- Asish Gottipati
1. If we take bumper for example, its influence on the six stages of product
design are as follows.
a. Design:
The part design includes the part geometry and the material selection.
These two are interrelated and each has influence over the other. For a
bumper design material should be selected according to the strength
required and should be suitable for the part geometry involving rounded
corners, drafts and sufficient and uniform thickness for the part required
as per the material selected. The material selection for bumper is also
influenced by the exposure it has to the environment and the range of
temperatures it is used in. keeping these in mind plastics like
polycarbonates, polypropylene, etc. are used for bumper
manufacturing.
b. Tooling:
The tool for bumper manufacturing should be designed considering the
shape of the product and the defects it may cause if the tool is not
designed properly. The tool should consider a gate, parting line and
ejector pins. The tool dimension should be able to compensate all the
defects may be caused like the shrinking defect, etc. and also should
reduce secondary machining of the product.
c. Processing:
Injection molding process is followed as the material selected is a
plastic. This process includes melting, injection, cooling and solidification
and ejection. The entire process is simulated using computational
methods for better performance.
d. Assembly and Handling:
For bumper snap fitting is followed in most of the fittings for the ease of
assembly and disassembly and as it requires no additional fasteners and
so the product is designed in various shapes for the snap fits. In some
places of the bumper fasteners cannot be avoided for the safety and so
are used.
 e. Service:
The design is made such that the parts like the fog lamp in the bumper
can easily be removed and for the service purposes and can be easily
replaced. So all the attachments to the bumper are made in such a way
that they can be serviced easily without the removal of the entire
assembly.
f. End of Life:
The material selected should be suitable for recycling once the product
has come its end life. Since plastic is used feed stock recycling can be
followed.

2. The cycle time is made up of the following stages:

Fill time:
The time required to fill the mold with polymer. The injection molding machine
controls the velocity (flow rate) of the molten polymer entering the mold during
this stage of the cycle.
The product cost is effected by the complexity of the mold and the difficulty in
obtaining the molten polymer.
Packing time:
The stage of the injection molding cycle when pressure is applied to the polymer
melt to compress the polymer and to force more material into the mold. This
compensates for the shrinkage that occurs as the polymer cools from the melt
temperature to ambient (room) temperature.
The more the packing time and complexity the more is the product cost.
Cooling time.
The cooling time is the stage of the injection molding cycle when there is no more
pressure being applied to the polymer. The mold is held shut and the polymer
continues to cool until the part can be ejected. The cooling stage is normally the
longest part of the molding cycle and can account for up to 80 percent of the total
cycle time.
The more resourced used for the fast cooling of the mold the more is the cost of
the product.
Mold open time.
The time for which the mold is open before the next molding cycle begins. This
time includes the following:
Opening the mold
Ejecting the part
Preparing for the next cycle, such as loading inserts (not always part of the cycle)
Closing the mold
The complexity and ease of manufacturing the mold and the reuse of the mold
also influences the cost of the product.

3. The self-assembly techniques available on plastic products are

a. Snap fit.
b. Living hinge.
c. Press fit.

4. The common defects observed on plastic products are

a. Sink marks.
b. Flow lines.
c. Wrapping.
d. Air voids.
e. Burn marks.

5. The following steps are followed.

a. Once the most basic rough sketch of a product is received from the
customer, it is divided into different parts or sections based on the type
of materials, manufacturing process or the functionality of the section.
b. Then the bill of material is made.
c. It is sent to the product engineer.
d. Then the tooling axis for each particular part is decided such that the
tooling line is parallel to all the fits.
e. Then the drafts are made for better quality of the product.
f. The cavity and cores are fixed.
g. Then the master sections are made and how each part fit with the other
are decided.