WORKING WITH PLASTIC isn't always easy, as engineers at Axiomatic
Product Development Ltd. of Concord, Ontario, know. The product
development company offers engineering consulting services for the
automotive, aerospace, and consumer products industries.
The
company's greatest challenge is to design the tooling and molds for
automotive plastic parts. The majority of the plastic parts the company
helps to develop are functional assemblies that involve kinematics and
complex tool actions, said Ed Panziera, the company's president.
"Customers expect Axiomatic to help them reduce manufacturing costs
through weight reduction and design for automation," Panziera said.
"We're also expected to reduce development time to market of new
products, and to validate design parameters through the use of CAE
tools prior to the start of hard tooling."
Design for automation means that the tools must be rugged enough to use again and again.
The CAE tools include plastic simulation software from Moldflow of Wayland, Mass.
The software enables engineers to reduce weight and to ensure that parts can be molded and can pass validation testing.
"Material reductions of even a few grams can provide significant
cost savings," Panziera said. "Cosmetic issues such as sink, warp, and
blemishes can be addressed before tooling is produced, potentially
saving thousands of dollars in tool revisions."
For instance, a General Motors tier one automotive supplier recently
approached Axiomatic for help with a troublesome chrome-plated, plastic
inside-door handle, he said.
"The supplier had numerous problems with the gate blush and sink
marks that only appeared after the parts had been plated. The high
scrap rate and numerous tooling changes to attempt to remedy the
problem were very costly," Panziera said.
Axiomatic used Moldflow software to determine the best location,
profile, and shape of the gate. The result was a dramatic reduction in
scrap rate, to nearly zero, he said.
Copyright American Society of Mechanical Engineers May 2004
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved
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