TY - JOUR
T1 - Analysis of Melt Front Behavior of a Light Guiding Plate during the Filling Phase of Micro-Injection Molding
AU - Lin, Wei Chun
AU - Fan, Fang Yu
AU - Huang, Chiung Fang
AU - Shen, Yung Kang
AU - Wang, Liping
N1 - Funding Information:
The authors would like to gratefully acknowledge the financial support from the Ministry of Science and Technology, Taiwan through grant no. MOST 111-2622-8-038-003-TB.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 by the authors.
PY - 2022/8
Y1 - 2022/8
N2 - When the size of a liquid crystal display (LCD) increases, the light guiding plate (LGP) as the main part of the LCD must adopt a wedge-shaped plate to reduce its weight (the thickness of the LGP decreases because of this) and guide the light to the LCD screen. Micro-injection molding (MIM) is commonly used to manufacture LGPs. During the filling phase of MIM, the entire entering polymer melt front of the LGP should reach the end of the mold cavity at the same time. In this way, there will be no shrinkage or warpage of the LGP in its subsequent application, but it is difficult for the wedge-shaped LGP to meet these requirements. Therefore, the authors hoped to investigate MIM process parameters to change this situation. Otherwise, the LGP is easily deformed during the manufacturing process. Flow characteristics of LGPs were investigated during the filling phase of MIM in this study. Experimental and 3D numerical simulations were used to analyze the hysteresis, i.e., the advance of the polymer melt front of the LGP in MIM. Study results showed that a low injection speed caused a hysteresis effect of the plastic melt front, the solution was to increase the injection speed to improve the situation and an injection speed of 10 cm/s could achieve uniformity of the melt front in MIM. The research results showed that the filling situation of the LGP of MIM in the experiment was very close to that of the 3D numerical simulation.
AB - When the size of a liquid crystal display (LCD) increases, the light guiding plate (LGP) as the main part of the LCD must adopt a wedge-shaped plate to reduce its weight (the thickness of the LGP decreases because of this) and guide the light to the LCD screen. Micro-injection molding (MIM) is commonly used to manufacture LGPs. During the filling phase of MIM, the entire entering polymer melt front of the LGP should reach the end of the mold cavity at the same time. In this way, there will be no shrinkage or warpage of the LGP in its subsequent application, but it is difficult for the wedge-shaped LGP to meet these requirements. Therefore, the authors hoped to investigate MIM process parameters to change this situation. Otherwise, the LGP is easily deformed during the manufacturing process. Flow characteristics of LGPs were investigated during the filling phase of MIM in this study. Experimental and 3D numerical simulations were used to analyze the hysteresis, i.e., the advance of the polymer melt front of the LGP in MIM. Study results showed that a low injection speed caused a hysteresis effect of the plastic melt front, the solution was to increase the injection speed to improve the situation and an injection speed of 10 cm/s could achieve uniformity of the melt front in MIM. The research results showed that the filling situation of the LGP of MIM in the experiment was very close to that of the 3D numerical simulation.
KW - flow characteristics
KW - light guiding plate
KW - melt front
KW - micro-injection molding
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U2 - 10.3390/polym14153077
DO - 10.3390/polym14153077
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85137085188
SN - 2073-4360
VL - 14
JO - Polymers
JF - Polymers
IS - 15
M1 - 3077
ER -