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Abstract

A microcellular foam plastic part made by an injection molding method can be treated as a sandwich structure in which a foamed core is encased by a skin frame. The morphology, fiber orientation, and the cell structure of the part are the key factors for the final part properties. It has unique characteristics for a microcellular plastic injection molding part because of a uniform cell distribution across the foamed section. The simple models, based on this structure for prediction of mechanical properties of microcellular plastics, are proposed and verified by the injection molding microcellular sample tests. The weight reduction percentage of the whole part and the skin thickness are used as input data to calculate the mechanical properties. Impact strength calculation needs more information, such as cell density, in addition to the data above. The effect of skin–core ratio for the mechanical properties of foamed part is also discussed in this paper.

Keywords

microcellular foam mechanical property weight reduction skin thickness modeling

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Simple Modeling of the Mechanical Properties with Part Weight Reduction for Microcellular Foam Plastic

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