Numerical Process Simulation Validation of a Light Electronic Enclosure in Compliance With Required High‐Quality Standards by the Automotive Industry

The EU has challenged automotive manufacturers to meet ambitious CO 2 reduction targets. To achieve this goal, it is necessary to resort to all types of solutions, including car weight reduction. However, achieving this objective while maintaining safety and performance requirements, and managing cost containment, is the major issue of today’s automotive industry. In this regard, the replacement of metal with lightweight materials can drastically reduce the car’s total weight. Under the development of a lightweight electronic enclosure for the automotive industry, the metal materials were replaced with a combination of different thermoplastics and composite‐reinforced thermoplastic polymers. The component, to be assembled with several others, requires high dimensional accuracy, therefore, the process production, by injection molding, was accompanied by process numerical simulations to predict the behavior of the material, validate the geometry, and if not, redesign the 3D CAD. Numerical simulations also support the development of the manufacturing tool and, in addition, support the process conditions’ definition. This study focuses on a three‐component combination, belonging to an automotive electronic enclosure, produced by a two‐step injection molding process. In the first step, a composite‐reinforced thermoplastic composite is positioned in the mold cavity and overmolded with an electrical dissipative polymer, resulting in a part defined as the bottom cover. In the second step, the bottom cover was placed in another mold cavity, and overmolded with a second polymer melt, with thermal dissipative properties, to produce the thermal dissipative plate, resulting in the final component. For dimensional accuracy assessment, the part was 3D scanned. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) analysis was performed to evaluate the process conditions in the fiber orientation of injected material. The experimental results were correlated with the numerical process simulation.