Hipermoulding Project

ASCAMM is participating in the Hipermoulding Project that is starting its last year, in which there will be some results to apply to the injection moulding and muold Manufacturing industry.

This HIPERMOULDING project results in a new innovative approach of injection moulding and mould manufacturing processes.

This new approach is shown the figure and consists of the following steps:

• Step 1 A mould designer is designing the core and cavity geometry's in the "traditional" way by using a 3D CAD system

• Step 2 Both the core and the cavity (of step 1) will be imported in the HIPERMOULDING module which will be developed in the project in WP1. This module needs, besides this geometrical input of the core/cavity geometry's, also information on the material to be moulded, injection moulding machine, requirements on part accuracy / surface finish etc.

• Step 3 The HIPERMOULDING module will decide on the position and shape of the conformal cooling channels. Besides that the module will advice on the lbmm technology (WP2), finishing strategy (WP2) and moulding parameters (WP3).

• Step 4 The HIPERMOULDING module will output a digital near-net-shape representation of the core/cavity to be processed by the chosen lbmm technology (WP2).

• Step 5 The core/cavity are being manufactured (near-net-shape) by one of the lbmm technologies.

• Step 6 The HIPERMOULDING module will output a finishing strategy to come to the net-shape (WP2).

• Step 7 The, by the lbmm technology manufactured, near-net shape mould will be finished by using the appropriate finishing strategy.

• Step 8 The HIPERMOULDING process can be executed on the designated injection moulding machine while using the finished net-shape HIPERMOULDS and moulding parameters.

Six European Industrial Association Groupings (IAG) have in association with six well regarded research organisations taken a major new European initiative in assisting SME injection moulders and mould makers. They are collaborating with twelve Small and Medium Sized enterprises on a Collective Research proposal aimed at assisting injection moulders and their mould makers to reduce throughput times in injection moulding through improved mould design and manufacturing.

One of these IAG is FEAMM (http://www.feamm.com), Federación Española de Asociaciones Empresariales de Moldistas y Matricerosa, and the Responsible of the project is Domenec Pijuan.

ASCAMM (htp://www.ascamm.com) is one of the Technology Centers that participate in the project.

The team is composed by Joan Guasch, Alex Sancho, Encarna Escudero, Josep Bas and Andrea Castaño.