HOW ARE CAR DASHBOARDS MADE? THESE ARE 6 INJECTION MOLDING PROCESSES YOU MUST KNOW
Date: Jan 08 2021 | By:LC Rapid
Tag:Injection Molding,
Ⅰ. The injection molding process can improve the product quality of automobile dashboard
In the production of auto parts, dashboards are one of the most common auto parts requirements. Nowadays, the design of automobile dashboards is mostly produced by plastic manufacturing. With the development of automobiles in terms of safety and environmental protection, people’s requirements for safety and environmental protection of automobile trims are also increasing; at the same time, more and more dashboards adopt the appearance design of seamless airbag doors, which puts forward higher and higher requirements on the manufacturing process of the dashboard.
Take Chevrolet’s dashboard as an example. The total weight of the dashboard system is about 17KG. Its component structures mainly include: dashboard body, airbag frame, dashboard lower body, sub-instrument panel body, interior trim panel, decorative panel, wind pipe, mobile ashtray; main materials: general-purpose plastic PP+EPDM-T20, PP-T20, ABS, PC+ABS, HDPE; engineering plastic PA+30GF%, POM, etc., based on a rough calculation, the amount of modified PP accounts for 80% of the plastic used in the dashboard. If you want to improve the product quality of the car dashboard, you must pay attention to the process of injection molding in automotive industry.
Ⅱ. The injection molding process of the instrument panel
The dried plastic particles are cut in the injection molding machine through the screw and the barrel is heated and melted and then injected into the instrument panel mold to cool to obtain the finished product. Used to manufacture rigid plastic instrument panel body, blister and soft instrument panel skeleton and most other related parts. Hard plastic instrument panel materials mostly use PP, and the materials of instrument panel skeleton mainly include modified materials such as PC/ABS, PP, PPO (PPE). For other parts, ABS, PVC, PC, PA and other materials are selected according to different functions, structures and appearance requirements.
The injection molding processing of the instrument panel can be further divided into: gas-assisted injection molding, sequence valve injection molding, compound injection molding, insert injection molding, two-color injection molding, two-shot injection molding, etc.
1. Gas-assisted injection molding
Gas-assisted injection molding is an injection molding process in which molten plastic particles are injected into the mold while a certain amount of inert gas is injected, and a specific area of the part is formed into a hollow structure through the design of the gas path, structure and process control. The hollow structure not only enhances the mechanical properties of the parts, but also reduces the wall thickness of the parts, improves the appearance of the parts, and reduces the material cost and forming cycle.
