Immetech | Nitrogen Gas-Assisted Mold Development Solution
Meet the powerful core technology behind our gas-assisted injection molding solutions
In August 2017, the world-famous children’s seat customers Dorel awarded us an important new production and development project based on our long-term cooperation performance and professional ability affirmation. The technology for this large, complex plastic molds project included vacuum negative pressure adsorption, live sensor monitoring of in-mold pressure/temperature and venting, and nitrogen gas-assisted molding and degating in mold and large double shot injection mold. Six nitrogen gas-assisted molds had been developed and manufactured by American professional mold companies previously, but there had been no successful experience in developing similar molds in Chinese mold manufacturing before.
Time was very tight and the task was of great significance, so Immetech immediately established a project team, with CEO Jason in charge to make technical decisions quickly based on his engineering background, and to appoint qualified engineers & designers to carry out overall project evaluation and solution review, and to start the mold design at the same time. According to information provided by the customer and our experience, Jason decided to use technology and equipment from America’s top nitrogen molding solutions provider, Bauer Compressors Inc. Jason flew to their US plant for further learning and communicating with their experts and team, then to the IN Columbus plant for further project reviews with the Dorel team. After further reviews with the China core design team, we finally completed mold design and confirmed all details in 3 weeks. Two months of round-the-clock work followed to build molds, ensuring we met the customer’s target to complete the whole project of molds development and building on time.
Gas-assisted injection molding is a process that produces large plastic parts with complex designs and superb cosmetic surface finishes, which can save on material resources and avoid sink mark issues due to uneven wall thicknesses, etc. The gas-assisted injection molding process is a low-pressure, conventional injection molding process that forces a short shot of material to fill a mold by using pressurized nitrogen gas to displace the material in a pre-destined thick area while forming hollow sections in the part. Before gas assist injection mold design, we needed to run a Moldflow simulation to decide gas pin location & size, overflow location & size, since a miss is as good as a mile!!!
The gas-assisted injection molding filling and spillover process:
- Valve gate opens to allow resin injection, overflow gate closes to avoid resin flow into cavity (These functions happen simultaneously)
- Valve gate closes once the part fills with resin / Overflow gate opens (These functions happen simultaneously)
- Bauer Junior ID high pressure industrial grade compressor is used to compress the supplied nitrogen to the Bauer FCC5 controller. The FCC5 precisely controls the gas pressure that is injected into the mold.
- The gas provides very equal pressure throughout the part cavity during the cooling phase
- The gas pressure is vented from part through the gas injector pin
- Once the part is sufficiently cooled the mold is opened
- Mold ejection system starts working to remove parts, recycle extra plastic
Watch the gas-assisted injection molding filling and spillover process:
Gas injection molding (GIM) super hard-core equipment you need to know:
- Bauer First Class Controller 5—FCC5-2V-SEQ OPT：regulates the injection of neutral gas under High Pressure (HP) and times defined via the Human to Machine Interface (PLC). This controller supports dual-channel launch, which can simultaneously meet the design and production requirements of multi-cavity product with multi-nitrogen intake channel mold, and can simultaneously control the different pressure and charging time of each nitrogen intake pin
- Bauer Junior ID Industrial Grade High Pressure Compressor Working pressure is 300Bar.G (final safety valve setting 330Bar.G)
- A series of 16 canisters of nitrogen gas source: Praxair brand Nitrogen, Pressure up to 4000PSI, purity up to 99.9%
We are very appreciative for the strong support and assistance provided by the professional nitrogen-assisted plastic mold solution provider Bauer Compressors Inc. They sent their managers Rick and Dennis to China to fully participate, and trained our team for mold test debugging and acceptance during the mold trial testing acceptance stage. Through this cooperation, we have strengthened the confidence of our long-term cooperation on both sides, and will keep abreast of their advanced technology and use their equipment to provide high-quality and complex gas-assisted injection mold development and production for worldwide customers. If you are interested in related technology or have similar projects to develop, you are welcome to contact us.
Watch the nitrogen gas-assisted molding process below:
