Advantages of Plastic Material - Essay Example

Plastic materials have more advantages in terms of strength-to-weight ratio and corrosion resistance when compared to metal replacements, it becomes understandable as to why plastics are fast becoming the industry standard requiring such applications. With the mere addition of glass and carbon fibers to the plastic properties, the material itself is reinforced with mechanical and thermal properties that have only a negligible change in weight. The reason behind this breakthrough technology is most likely the addition of fibers which allowed for the introduction of anisotropy of properties in these industrial application injection molded parts. Its existence in the process allowed for the preferential orientation of fibers during the flow processing. In simpler terms, the shearing flow becomes much stronger due to the alignment of fibers in the same direction. This occurs in the part of the fiber that needs to be much stronger and stiffer than its cross-directional fiber alignment.

            However, it is not easy to predict the properties of the injection-molded parts, inclusive of their design, that will be considered or used in the selection of processing conditions. These will mostly rely on fiber orientation prediction. In most instances, commonly used commercial programs and software such as Autodesk Moldflow Insight base their fiber orientation prediction upon the Folgar-Tucker model (Folgar and Tucker, 1984).  Developed using Jeffery's equation (1922), the Folgar - Tucker model uses a single rigid fiber in an infinite Newtonian fluid. This is accomplished with the addition of an isotropic rotary diffusion that interacts between the fibers. The equation is then recast using a second-order orientation tensor meant for affordable computations.

            By using Autodesk Moldflow Insight software, the user can add packing filling and phases of the injection molding process. This allows for a greater ability to forecast the melted plastic flow model at a higher manufacturing quality than usual. This ability will also allow engineers to help enhance gate locations, systems of balance runners, process assessment, and part defect correction with more precision. Mold manufacturers greatly benefit from the ability of the software to simulate the effects of non-uniform mold temperatures, and better assess adjusted valve-gate timing categorizations, and the hot versus cold runner flow system associations. All of these can be achieved along with the spread simulation competencies of elective models. These can now go beyond ordinary thermoplastic injection molding to state molding procedures. Procedures that require gas-aided co-injection, and injection compression.

            Another advantage of using Autodesk Moldflow Insight software is that it offers constant monitoring of inventors, mold makers, and engineers whose work in the simulation setup and consequences allows the program to better understand the required performance of the molded plastic material.

The ability of the program to evaluate situations allows the entire product development cycle to produce the best possible quality products using given materials and equations.