A Study on Injection Molding Process Parameters for Dryer Base Components

Abstract

This study focused on optimizing the injection molding parameters to improve the weight consistency of a plastic dryer base component. Short-shot defects caused by incomplete mold filling were addressed by analyzing four key factors: amount of material filling, injection pressure, injection speed, and cooling time. The Taguchi method with an L9 orthogonal array was applied to identify the optimal conditions with minimal experimental effort. The part weight was used as a key indicator of product quality and process stability. The results showed that material filling had the greatest effect on weight variation, followed by injection pressure, injection speed, and cooling time. The optimal settings needed to reduce the weight deviation by up to eightfold and reduce the defect rates from 3.1% to 0.4% included 445 g of filling, 115 psi of pressure, 115 m/s of Injection speed, and 65 s of cooling. Moreover, material usage was also reduced by approximately 10%. These findings provide practical guidance for improving the injection molding quality and efficiency, particularly for small- and medium-sized enterprises that focus on precision and cost-effective manufacturing.