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Application Note: Injection-Molded Plastics

Today, injection-molded plastics are used extensively in nearly every industry, including for applications such as automotive and industrial parts, as well as consumer products. Plastics have come to replace metal and steel in many applications, and are favored for their light weight, strength, and ability to be manufactured to very complex shapes.

However, the complex, curved shapes of many injection molded plastic parts make them some of the most difficult to measure for conformance to designed dimensional specifications. Many manufacturers of injection-molded plastic parts rely on ShapeGrabber 3D laser scanners for quality control and inspection.

ShapeGrabber systems are particularly valuable for use with injection molded plastic parts because:

They enable rigorous quality control measures to be applied to precision injection molded plastics.
They capture millions of data points in a few minutes and represent the true surface geometry.
They accurately measure complex shapes with compound curves.
They can be used to effectively detect and measure warpage, twist, bow and shrinkage, as well as to troubleshoot fit problems.
They can scan parts of a wide range of size, material and color.

Automotives Example

Below is an example of the results that can be achieved using a ShapeGrabber to scan a complex-shaped plastic part – in this case, a radiator tank.

Image: Radiator tank scan data from ShapeGrabber, rendered in Geomagic software. Click image to enlarge.

The scan data provides millions of data points, enabling software such as Geomagic® to render a complete model of the whole part in three dimensions. The software can then be used to compare the scanned part to the CAD file to identify how well the part meets spec.

Automotive manufacturers using ShapeGrabber products in this way include Toyota, Honda, Ogihara, Plasticos and others.

Industrial Example

Perhaps the greatest challenge for Quality Assurance in industrial environments is the wide variety of parts that contribute to an overall product’s performance in the field.

Image: Injection-molded plastic part from an irrigation system.

Injection-molded plastic connectors (such as the irrigation system component shown here) are one example of parts that customers use ShapeGrabber scanners to inspect. They come in a wide range of shapes, sizes and colours, from black to white. The connecting joints – often threaded – are typically where our customers need to focus their inspections.

ShapeGrabber 3D scanners excel for these applications because they are capable of very rapidly scanning parts of a wide range of sizes, shapes, rigidities, colours and materials. The resulting scans can be used to compare the part to a CAD file, or to compare a “good” part to a “bad” part to identify the nature of an unspecified flaw.

Consumer Products Example

Some ShapeGrabber customers are in the consumer products business – another industry in which molded plastic is widely used. From telephone handsets (shown below) to pudding cups, ShapeGrabber scanners are used to ensure that objects that consumers handle are manufactured consistently to meet the company’s or the industry’s specifications.

Images: Telephone handset and colour-map comparison to handset CAD file. Data collected by ShapeGrabber and analysed using InnovMetric’s PolyWorks®.

Other Advantages

Using ShapeGrabber for injection molded plastics applications also offers these advantages:

Scans containing millions of data points can be completed within minutes, so the complete part can be verified in production.
Scans can be easily compared directly to 3D CAD models.
Scan data provides accurate and timely feedback on prototypes, allowing faster and better part design and process optimization.
The visual nature of the results makes it possible to more quickly troubleshoot the source of a problem and get back to production.
Parts do not have to placed in an expensive fixture to be scanned, leading to significant savings in capital costs.
Scan results are documented in automatically generated reports and can be provided to customers as part of your quality assurance process.

To discuss your specific scanning needs, please contact ShapeGrabber today.