Use of a digital image correlation method for full-field shrinkage measurement in injection molding

An original methodology using Digital Image Correlation (DIC) has been designed to precisely measure full-field shrinkages of injection molded polymer plates and then to give the opportunity to compare quantitatively extensive numerical simulations to experiments. The principle of the methodology is based on the full-field strain determination between a reference image of the mold and that of injection-molded parts, which are 275 × 100 × 2.2 mm3 plates. To allow for DIC calculation, 50 µm-depth engravings were machined by electro-discharge process at the surface of the mold. The result of the analysis is a 2D full-field shrinkage map over the whole plate surface (i.e. flow and transverse), with a standard deviation of 0.03%. The marking density has been shown to have a roughly linear influence on the precision of shrinkage measurement. This methodology allows the quantification of the effect of several injection parameters on in-plane shrinkage fields: holding pressure, injection flow rate and direction, geometry of injection gates, or geometrical constraints. Once the best set of parameters of material constitutive laws is identified for the simulation of polymer plates, the simulation procedure is ready to be applied on more complex 3D geometries.