Automatic initial design of injection mould

An injection mould is a key mechanical system for injection moulding. The early design stages, such as selecting a suitable moulding machine, arranging cavity layout, designing the feed system and selecting the mould base, are classified as the initial design of an injection mould. This initial design can not only be used as a guide for a quotation for a mould and its later detailed design, but can also serve as a communication bridge between the product design engineers and mould design engineers. This paper discusses the algorithms for an automatic initial design of an injection mould. To implement the automatic arrangement of cavity layout, a feature box is designed that records gate information and the geometric features of the product. The proposed algorithms have been implemented in the IMOLD system developed at the National University of Singapore. IMOLD is an intelligent injection mould design and assembly system and trademark of National University of Singapore. Homepage: http://www.eng.nus.edu.sg/imold.