Materials and Design 31 (2010) 599604

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Materials and Design

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/matdes

Short Communication

Reducing shrinkage in injection moldings via the Taguchi, ANOVA and neural network methods
Mirigul Altan *
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Yildiz Technical University, Yildiz, Istanbul 34349, Turkey

a r t i c l e

i n f o

a b s t r a c t
Plastic injection molding is suitable for mass production articles since complex geometries can be obtained in a single production step. However, the difculty in setting optimal process conditions may cause defects in parts, such as shrinkage. In this study, optimal injection molding conditions for minimum shrinkage were determined by the Taguchi, experimental design and the analysis of variance (ANOVA) methods. Polypropylene (PP) and polystyrene (PS) were injected in rectangular-shaped specimens under various processing parameters: melt temperature, injection pressure, packing pressure and packing time. S/N ratios were utilized for determining the optimal set of parameters. According to the results, 260 C of melt temperature, 60 MPa of injection pressure, 50 MPa of packing pressure and 15 s of packing time gave minimum shrinkage of 0.937% for PP and 1.224% for PS. Statically the most signicant parameters were found to be as packing pressure and melt temperature for the PP and PS moldings, respectively. Injection pressure had the least effect on the shrinkage of either material. After the degree of signicance of the studied process parameters was determined, the neural network (NN) model was generated and was shown to be an efcient predictive tool for shrinkage. 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Article history: Received 7 May 2009 Accepted 30 June 2009 Available online 3 July 2009

1. Introduction Injection molding represents one of the most important processes in the mass production of manufactured plastic parts with complex geometries. The quality of the injection moldings depends on the material characteristics, the mold design and the process conditions [1,2]. Defects in the dimensional stability of the parts result in shrinkage and warpage. In order to minimize such defects in plastic injection molding, design of experiment, the Taguchi method is applied. In experimental design, there are many variable factors that affect the functional characteristics of the product. Design parameter values that minimize the effect of noise factors on the products quality are determined. In order to nd optimum levels, fractional factorial designs using orthogonal arrays are used. In this way, an optimal set of process conditions can be obtained from very few experiments [3,4]. There are several researchers that have studied the effects of injection molding process parameters on the shrinkage of moldings [58]. Since many process parameters affect the shrinkage, parameter optimization and experimental design are needed to produce high quality products. Some researchers have been conducted on optimizing shrinkage in plastic injection moldings. In thin-shelled plastic component production, Oktem et al. [9] used the Taguchi method to reduce warpage problems that were related
* Tel.: +90 212 383 28 95; fax: +90 212 261 66 59. E-mail address: meksi@yildiz.edu.tr. 0261-3069/$ - see front matter 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.matdes.2009.06.049

to a variation in the process-parameters dependent on the shrinkage. They improved the warpage and the shrinkage by determining the optimal packing time, packing pressure, injection time and cooling time. The packing pressure and the packing time were found to be the most important parameters. Vaatainen et al. [10] investigated the effect of the injection molding parameters on the visual quality of the moldings using the Taguchi method. They focused on the shrinkage with three more quality characteristics: weight, weld lines and sink marks. They were able to optimize many quality characteristics with very few experiments, which could lead to cost savings. Shen et al. [11] studied the effects of the process parameters on the shrinkage by utilizing a combination of the CAE and the Taguchi technique. Chang and Faison [12] studied the shrinkage behavior and optimization of PS, HDPE and ABS parts by using the Taguchi and ANOVA methods. They stated that the mold and melt temperatures along with the holding pressure and the holding time were the most signicant factors affecting the shrinkage behavior of the three materials studied. Liao et al. [13] determined the optimal process conditions for a thin-walled injection molding, for cellular phone covers, by the Taguchi method. Based on the results of the analysis of variables and the F-test, packing pressure was found to be the most important parameter affecting the shrinkage and the warpage. In this work, the effects of the process conditions on the shrinkage of injection molded polypropylene and polystyrene were determined by the Taguchi and ANOVA methods. Signal-to-noise ratio was used to obtain the optimal set of process parameters.

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M. Altan / Materials and Design 31 (2010) 599604 Table 1 Variable factor levels. Factors Melt temperature, A (C) Injection pressure, B (MPa) Packing pressure, C (MPa) Packing time, D (s) Level 1 220 50 30 5 Level 2 240 60 40 10 Level 3 260 70 50 15

Furthermore, a neural network model was generated to predict the shrinkage results for the optimal process conditions of the PP and PS moldings. 2. Experimental study 2.1. Materials Polypropylene and polystyrene were used as an amorphous and a semicrystalline polymer. The grade of the PP was MH-418 (Petrochemicals Inc., Turkey) with a melt index of 4.5 g/10 min (at 230 C). The grade of the PS was LGH-306 (LG Polymers Inc.) with a melt index of 7.5 g/10 min (at 200 C). 2.2. Injection molding A rectangular-shaped specimen (Fig. 1) was injection molded with a 40-ton injection molding machine (M40 S95, Yelkenciler Inc.), which performs the injection process by adjusting the experimental parameters via a control program. Materials were dried for 4 h at 60 C prior to injection. 2.3. Shrinkage measurement Six points were marked on the specimen, as given in Fig. 2, and measurements were made with digital calipers (with an accuracy of 0.001 mm). For each specimen, the average thickness was calculated as the arithmetic mean of the six points. The relative shrinkage was determined as

Table 2 The layout of the L27 OA. Deney No. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 A 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 B 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 C 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 D 1 2 3 2 3 1 3 1 2 1 2 3 2 3 1 3 1 2 1 2 3 2 3 1 3 1 2

S Dm Dp =Dm 100%

where S denotes the shrinkage, Dm denotes the mold dimension and Dp denotes the part dimension. 2.4. Experimental design In order to determine the optimal process conditions and the effect of the processing parameters on the shrinkage of PP and PS, the Taguchi method, experimental design was utilized. The controllable factors selected were the melt temperature (A), injection pressure (B), packing pressure (C) and packing time (D). Table 1 gives the variable factors and their levels. Four variable factors with three levels were studied, as shown in Table 1; therefore, the L27 orthogonal array (OA) was selected for this study. The layout of the L27 OA is given in Table 2. The signal-to-noise ratios (S/N) for each experiment were determined by

where n is the number of shrinkage data sets (which is equal to 27) and yi is the shrinkage value for the ith data set. 3. Results and discussion 3.1. Taguchi method The Taguchi method was applied to determine the effect of the process parameters on the shrinkage. The measured shrinkage values and the signal-to-noise results are given in Table 3. The signalto-noise ratio is a simple quality indicator that researchers and designers can use to evaluate the effect of changing a particular design parameter on the performance or the products [3,14,15]. In this study, the smaller the better quality characteristic was selected when calculating the S/N ratios. The response table of the S/N ratios is given in Table 4. In the table, the best set of combination parameters can be determined by selecting the level with the highest value for each factor. As a result, the optimal process parameter combination for both PP and PS is A3, B2, C3, D3. Furthermore, the difference values, given in Table 4, denote which factor is the most signicant for the shrinkage of the PP and PS moldings. Packing pressure was found to be the most effective factor for PP. Melt temperature followed by packing pressure were the most effective factors for the PS parts. The combination of the optimum process conditions was not included in the main experiment, given in Table 3. Therefore, a conrmation test was conducted to determine the optimal conditions. The corresponding S/N ratios were 0.565 dB and 1.756 dB for PP

" S=N 10 log

1 n

n X i 1

# y2 i 2

Fig. 1. Rectangular specimen.

Fig. 2. Points measured on the specimen.

M. Altan / Materials and Design 31 (2010) 599604 Table 3 Shrinkage values and S/N ratios for PP and PS. No. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 Melt temperature (C) 220 220 220 220 220 220 220 220 220 240 240 240 240 240 240 240 240 240 260 260 260 260 260 260 260 260 260 Injection pressure (MPa) 50 60 70 50 60 70 50 60 70 60 70 50 60 70 50 60 70 50 70 50 60 70 50 60 70 50 60 Packing pressure (MPa) 30 40 50 30 40 50 30 40 50 50 30 40 50 30 40 50 30 40 40 50 30 40 50 30 40 50 30 Packing time (s) 5 10 15 10 15 5 15 5 10 5 10 15 10 15 5 15 5 10 5 10 15 10 15 5 15 5 10 Shrinkage (%) PP 1.844 1.313 1.125 1.688 1.563 1.438 1.688 1.469 1.250 1.344 1.625 1.375 1.094 1.313 1.406 1.063 1.813 1.625 1.250 1.313 1.219 1.250 1.000 1.563 1.156 1.313 1.469 Shrinkage (%) PS 3.125 2.281 2.125 2.563 1.594 1.875 2.031 2.031 1.844 1.375 2.281 1.344 1.438 1.813 1.625 1.313 1.875 1.719 1.781 1.375 1.406 1.531 1.250 1.844 1.656 1.344 1.844 S/N (dB) PP 5.314 2.362 1.023 4.545 3.876 3.152 4.545 3.339 1.938 2.566 4.217 2.766 0.778 2.362 2.961 0.527 5.166 4.217 1.938 2.362 1.718 1.938 0.000 3.876 1.261 2.362 3.339

601

S/N (dB) PS 9.897 7.163 6.547 8.173 4.048 5.460 6.155 6.155 5.314 2.766 7.163 2.566 3.152 5.166 4.217 2.362 5.460 4.704 5.014 2.766 2.961 3.701 1.938 5.314 4.383 2.566 5.314

Table 4 The response table of S/N ratios for PP and PS. Melt temperature, A (C) PP Level 1 Level 2 Level 3 Difference 3.344 2.840 2.088 1.255 PS 6.546 4.173 3.773 2.773 Injection pressure, B (MPa) PP 3.230 2.487 2.555 0.743 PS 4.776 4.360 5.356 0.997 Packing pressure, C (MPa) PP 3.898 2.740 1.634 2.264 PS 6.178 4.661 3.652 2.526 Packing time, D (s) PP 3.408 2.855 2.009 1.399 PS 5.206 5.272 4.014 1.258

Fig. 3. Effects of the processing parameters on the shrinkage of PP and PS moldings.

and PS, respectively, which were higher than those obtained in the orthogonal experimental design.

From the data given in Table 4, the S/N ratio response diagram was drawn (see Fig. 3). The highest S/N ratio for each factor gave

602 Table 5 ANOVA results for PP parts. Source value A B C D Residual Total Sum of squares 7.18617 3.03987 23.0653 8.94347 9.63091 51.8657

M. Altan / Materials and Design 31 (2010) 599604

Degree of freedom 2 2 2 2 18 26

Mean square 3.59307 1.51993 11.5326 4.47173 0.535051

F-ratio (%) 6.72 2.84 21.55 8.36

P-value 0.0006 0.0847 0.0000 0.0027

Table 6 ANOVA results for PS parts. Source value A B C D Residual Total Sum of squares 40.4364 4.51355 29.0951 9.02137 14.7849 97.8513 Degree of freedom 2 2 2 2 18 26 Mean square 20.2182 2.25677 14.5475 4.51068 0.821382 F-ratio (%) 24.61 2.75 17.71 5.49 P-value 0.0000 0.0909 0.0001 0.0137

the optimal process conditions, which correspond to a melt temperature of 260 C, an injection pressure of 60 MPa, a packing pressure of 50 MPa and a packing time of 15 s. 3.2. Analyses of variance (ANOVA) The ANOVA test was applied to determine the signicance of each parameter in the designed experimental study. The ANOVA results for PP and PS moldings are given in Tables 5 and 6, respectively. Since the three P-values were less than 0.05, these parameters had a statistically signicant effect on the shrinkage at the 95% condence level. From the ANOVA tables given above, it is apparent that the F-values of factors A, C, and D were all greater than F0.05,2,26 = 3.37. Factor B, with an F-value lower value than F0.05,2,26, was not an effective parameter for either material. To summarize, for the PP moldings, packing pressure was found to be the most effective parameter, followed by packing time and melt temperature by Taguchi and ANOVA methods. Mamat et al. [6], Pontes and Pouzada [16] and Jou [17] studied on the shrinkage in the PP moldings and they implied that holding pressure was a signicant factor in the reduction of the shrinkage. In this study, similar to the previous researches packing pressure had greater effect on the PP moldings due to very close packing of the crystalline structure took place in the solidifying and cooling phases [18]. It was seen that higher packing pressure gave better results by compensating the shrinkage during cooling of the polymer. Jansen et al. [19] investigated the shrinkage in the injection molded polystyrene under the effects of holding pressure, holding time and mold geometry. They reduced shrinkage seriously by increasing holding

Fig. 5. The SSE variation.

Fig. 4. The architecture of the neural network predictor model.

Fig. 6. A comparison of the experimental (Exp) and neural network (NN) shrinkage results.

M. Altan / Materials and Design 31 (2010) 599604 Table 7 Comparison of the shrinkage results of the experimental study and neural network for the optimal conditions. Optimal process conditions Shrinkage (%) Experimental A3B2C3D3 PP 0.937 Neural network A3B2C3D3 PP 1.018 Error (%) 8.6 Experimental A3B2C3D3 PS 1.224 Neural network A3B2C3D3 PS 1.230

603

Error (%) 0.48

pressure. In an another study of Jansen et al. [5], they found melt temperature slightly less effective on the shrinkage of the injection moldings. However in this study, melt temperature was found more important than holding pressure in minimizing of the shrinkage of the PS moldings probably due to better pressure transmission of the higher melt temperature. For the both materials, higher packing time decreased shrinkage until leveling off occurred at the gate freeze off time. 3.3. Neural network A neural network (NN) is a multilayered architecture composed of one or more hidden layers placed between the input and output layers. The layers include processing units known as neurons. They are connected with variable weights that must be determined. Each neuron receives total input from all of the neurons in the preceding layer. A neuron in the network produces its output by processing the input through an activation function [20,21]. The activation function, f(x), used in this study is

melt temperature, mold temperature, packing pressure and injection velocity. They did not realize the analysis of variance and depending on that they included all their studied process parameters in the network. In this study, neural network model was generated successfully according to the determined most signicant process parameters for the prediction of the shrinkage. The designed neural network model gave a satisfactory approximation, where the predictability of the model could be enhanced by increasing the number of hidden layers, neurons or cycles but if the computational cost of the training is shown not to be important.

4. Conclusions Taguchi and ANOVA methods were utilized to investigate the effects of melt temperature, injection pressure, packing pressure, packing time on the shrinkage of the PP and PS moldings. In Taguchi method, S/N ratios were used for determining the optimal set of process parameters. The results showed that 260 C of melt temperature, 60 MPa of injection pressure, 50 MPa of packing pressure and 15 s of packing time gave minimum shrinkages of 0.937% (PP) and 1.224% (PS). ANOVA method gave the signicance degree of the each process parameter. According to the P-values higher than 0.05, the injection pressure was not effective on the shrinkage of either material. On the other hand, packing pressure for the PP and melt temperature for the PS was statically signicant. Packing time had third degree importance on both moldings. The generated neural network model in terms of the most effective process parameters on the shrinkage, gave good approximation as compared with the optimal experimental results with errors of 8.6% (PP) and 0.48% (PS).

f x 1=1 expx

In this work, the neural network method was used to predict shrinkage values of the PS and PP moldings that corresponded to the optimal process conditions determined via the Taguchi method. Since ANOVA results denoted that injection pressure was not an effective parameter on the shrinkage of the PP and PS moldings, the injection pressure was excluded in the generation of the neural network model. The neural network model had two hidden layers with seven neurons each, whereas input and output layers had three and two neurons, respectively (Fig. 4). The inputs were the melt temperature, packing pressure and packing time, while the output was the shrinkage value of the PP and PS moldings. The network was trained by the Backpropagation type of algorithm used via a program written by author in Matlab for training neural network. A training data set was created from the data given in Table 3. A total of 21 runs were carried out for training, while the rest were used for testing. The training was performed for 500,000 cycles. The momentum and learning rate were taken to be 0.6 and 0.4, respectively. After 500,000 cycles, the network was able to predict the outputs with a sum of the squared error (SSE) equal to 0.000045. The SSE variation, depending on the cycles, is given in Fig. 5. The trained network was tested by using six data sets, which were not included in the training. The comparison of the predicted test data set results is shown in Fig. 6. Table 7 presents a comparison of the predicted and experimental shrinkage values of the moldings at the corresponding optimal process conditions that were determined. It shows that the neural network model is in good agreement with the experimental results, which makes it a usable and efcient tool for shrinkage prediction. Taguchi and ANOVA methods have been used by the researchers for investigating and optimizing the injection molding parameters for minimum shrinkage [913]. However, usage of neural network for the prediction of the shrinkage in the injection moldings after the design of the experiment is very rare. Liao et al. [22] used neural network model for prediction of warpage and shrinkage of the injection molded thin wall parts under various

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