Injection Mold Design Technology to Locate Weld Lines Away from Highly Loaded Structural Areas

This article presents the technology of automated placement of an injection molding gate based on a parametric optimization algorithm with technological constraints consideration. The algorithm is based on the modification of the genetic algorithm using the criterion of maximum equivalent stresses on the weld line as an optimization criterion. The proposed software’s modular structure combines the authors’ modules that implement a new optimization algorithm with the ANSYS 2022R1 and Moldflow calculation kernels called via API interfaces. This structure provides an opportunity to implement developed technology to solve industrial problems using standard mesh generation tools and complex geometric models due to the flexibility of modules and computing kernel scalability. The consideration of the technological constraints allows us to reduce the population size and optimization problem solution computational time to 1.9 times. The developed algorithms are used to solve the gate location optimization problem using the example of an aerospace bracket made of short-reinforced composite material with a nonzero genus surface and a weld line. The use of the proposed technology made it possible to increase the strength of the studied structure by two times.