Structural analysis for gas-assisted injection-molded parts

In this article, three computational models have been proposed to analyze the structure of gas-assisted injection-molded parts under external loads and constraints. Through comparison of numerical experiments, model II, which treats gas-assisted injection-molded parts as thin-walled hollow structures, is demonstrated to be reasonable and efficient for analysis and simulation of such parts. Model I, which converts the parts into shell structures with equivalent reinforcing hollow beams, is shown to be acceptable only under certain restricted situations. Considered to be the most accurate approach, model III faithfully models the parts as a solid structure with a hole. However, this kind of modeling is computationally inefficient.