Effect of asymmetric cooling system on in-mold roller injection molded part warpage

In-mold decoration (IMD) injection molding has been the most promising surface decoration technique in recent years, with the in-mold roller (IMR) injection molding being the most automated production process. During the IMR process, heat transfer in the cavity surface is significantly retarded because of the low thermal conductivity of film. As a result of the asymmetric melt and mold temperature, thermal-induced part warpage easily occurs. To understand the variation in the temperature field of the core and cavity caused by the plastic film, this research uses simulation and experiments to investigate the influence of the mold's (core-and-cavity) asymmetric cooling system temperature on product warpage, and examines the impact of the film's heat retardation effect on the crystallinity, tensile strength, and surface roughness of the treated products. Our results show that the film causes a higher contact temperature between the hot melt and mold during the molding process, resulting in asymmetric temperature in the mold (core and cavity), increasing the crystallinity of the cavity and consequently increasing product warpage. In plastic, the warpage increase is from 0.03 mm to 0.62 mm when the film thickness is 0.175 mm and the temperatures of the mold and hot melt are 50 °C and 230 °C, respectively, a great increase than with steel (P20). With the asymmetric cooling system design, in which the cavity temperature is 50 °C and the core temperature is 65 °C, the warpage can be reduced by 53%. For crystallinity and crystalline size, the film heat retardation effect of the IMR process increases the crystallinity of the cavity by 16%, and the crystallite size by 12%, along with some increase in tensile strength. In addition, the IMR process can also increase the smoothness of the product surface, reducing the surface roughness by 50%.