Hello and welcome to this blog post. Today we discuss the wall thickness optimization of an injection moulded part which is exposed to deflection load and is made out of Polyamide 6.6 with 50 wt% glass fiber reinforcement. We will replace the PA 6.6. with a glass fiber reinforced PolyArylAmide (PARA; MXD6) and check how much we can reduce the wall thickness. Learn about the difference between aliphatic Polyamides and PARA here and the ABC's of PARA you can find here.
Background of geometry optimization: wall thickness reduction
Basis of our calculation is the deflection (Y) equation of a beam with a uniform distributed load F where both ends of the beam are fixed (Figure 1). The current part made out of PA 6.6-GF 50wt% has a thickness of 3mm and the material has a Young’s modulus of 12.5 GPa (conditioned; Ultramid(R) A3WG10). The selected PARA has a Young’s modulus of 20 GPa (conditioned; Ixef 1022). Inserting the Young’s modulus of PA 6.6. and PARA, results that by using PARA the part stiffness will be 1.6 times higher compared to PA 6.6.
 |
| Figure 1: calculation path for part geometry optimization with PARA-GF 50wt%. |
Next we want to know how thin we can make the part by using a high modulus material such as PARA with 50 wt% glass fiber reinforcement and keeping the stiffness level. In order to calculate the wall thickness reduction, we need to rearrange the equation for the moment of inertia of a rectangular shape. By inserting 3 mm as current wall thickness, we will get 2.4 mm wall thickness when using PARA. This is a 20% reduction in wall thickness and will lead to less overall material consumption and reduced cooling time (more output).
Conclusions
Geometry optimization with high performance polymers allows one to have a stiffer part, a part with reduced wall thickness, and by adding ribs, it is possible to have a stiffer part with reduced wall thickness.
Thanks and #findoutaboutplastics
Greetings,
Interested in our material solutions - check out our product page here
Interested to talk with me about your polymer material selection, sustainability, and part design needs - here you can contact me
Interested in my monthly blog posts – then subscribe here and receive my high performance polymers knowledge matrix.
[1] https://www.findoutaboutplastics.com/2020/07/metal-replacement-with-high-performance.html
[2] https://www.albis.com/de/products/download/doc/de/SI/basf/UltramidA3WG10.pdf
[3] https://www.matweb.com/search/datasheettext.aspx?matguid=c718c0314b2b49b78f27aaa4190a53d4
No comments:
Post a Comment