Towards sustainable injection molding of ABS plastic products

This work sought to determine the effect of selected process parameters on the energy consumption of the injection molding process of acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS), through direct energy measuring of equipment involved, and quality of the molded parts. This was done to find an optimal trade-off between the two responses, thus maximizing the process sustainability. The selected process parameters were the melt temperature, mold temperature, holding pressure, holding time and cooling time. The quality criteria were the length and mass of the part produced. Design of Experiments (DOE) was used to generate an experimental schedule upon which the process parameters were varied and the corresponding energy consumption and quality responses were recorded. The results showed that the changes in the cycle time (holding and cooling time) incur the largest variation in energy consumption, when compared to the other process parameters considered.