Failure Analysis of Injection Molded Parts Using Multi-Physics Approach

Automotive OEM's are looking for innovative solutions to capture the possible failure due to warpage and shrinkage of an insert molded part through virtual simulations with help of FEA tools, thereby saving the mold cost, material cost and time.

This work demonstrates an approach to study and simulate the failure of an insert molded part which happened after few days of the part molding under idle condition. To simulate the above failure, an innovative approach coupling Moldflow and Abaqus software was derived. First, a flow simulation including phase change of plastic material was carried out with derived parameters, results of which were exported as input to the Abaqus structural solver. Secondly, a thermo-mechanical analysis of the model was then carried out considering the thermal and moisture effect on material property. A good correlation was achieved between the actual failure location and max stress location as predicted by said coupled approach. Then, this multi-physics approach was followed for selecting suitable material that would fulfill the desired condition.