Real time diagnostics of gas/water assisted injection moulding using integrated ultrasonic sensors

An ultrasound sensor system has been applied to the mould of both the water and gas assisted injection moulding processes. The mould has a cavity wall mounted pressure sensor and instrumentation to monitor the injection moulding machine. Two ultrasound sensors are used to monitor the arrival of the fluid (gas or water) bubble tip through the detection of reflected ultrasound energy from the fluid polymer boundary and the fluid bubble tip velocity through the polymer melt is estimated. The polymer contact with the cavity wall is observed through the reflected ultrasound energy from that boundary. A theoretically based estimation of the residual wall thickness is made using the ultrasound reflection from the fluid (gas or water) polymer boundary while the samples are still inside the mould and a good correlation with a physical measurement is observed.