Scale up and reduce risk
Husky Injection Molding Systems’ Hot Runner and Controllers Business Manager and Technical Specialist Sheldon Alexander introduces the innovative UltraShot technology, which enables its customers to scale-up in ways they never knew possible.
As we approach the end of a challenging year for many industries, Husky Injection Molding Systems is introducing its latest technological innovation, the UltraShot Injection System, which has been designed to enable medical customers to mold parts they haven’t been able to in the past, while offering risk-free scalability and innovative part design.
Injection molding has not evolved to meet industry demands. Traditional injection molding uses a reciprocating screw, which evolved into a two-stage process, where the melting and injection of the resin are separated to give better control and tighter tolerances. Since the two-stage process was introduced, there has been minimal evolution in injection molding – creating limitations in part design and production – until now. The melt delivery system is one of the most critical elements in the injection molding cell when it comes to high cavitation molding. Perfect melt management and cavity filling is key to final part quality and overall efficiency. With the UltraShot, Husky has moved the shooting pots in proximity of the gate, allowing for greater, highly precise molding control. The UltraShot Injection System pressurizes the resin near the cavities, reducing the influence of resin compressibility and shear, and thermal variations on balance and part quality. Eliminating these influences, the UltraShot Injection System achieves industry-leading balance and exceptional part quality. The discrete injection circuit design is scalable to 128 cavities, providing the same process conditions regardless of mold size. Elimination of the scaling effects leads to faster qualification time from pilot to product tooling while reducing risk. Compared to conventional hot runners, melt in the UltraShot Injection System experiences fewer high-pressure injection cycles, preserving the original resin properties. This leads to lower molded-in stress and better mechanical and optical properties in the molded part.
This is truly revolutionary for the medical market due to a number of key, highly applicable advantages, including the ability to increase scale faster with lower risk, helping customers go to market quicker; increasing yield by reducing scrap rates; eliminating subsequent manufacturing steps; and enabling new part designs and new resins usage – parts can be manufactured based on function not injection molding limitations.
Demanding better
This year, demand for rapid market entry has increased exponentially, and Husky responded by finding – through extensive new market needs and customer research – that global footprint and manufacturing capability is no longer enough. Now manufacturers need technology to allow for scalability enablement. The UltraShot does this through accurate systemic control. Scaling needs to be done carefully and precisely to ensure it is risk-free and economical. With the UltraShot, molders can effectively grow volume in an economical and timely manner while also greatly decreasing the time-to-market process.
In the past, due to risk limitations, medical molders would not go directly to the desired, most economical mold cavitation but often increase in multiple intermediate steps. Each step would have to be validated anytime they increase cavitation. This is not a quick process and can often take years to do successfully, plus it is very expensive requiring more equipment and a larger footprint. With today’s market needs, medical molders need to be able to scale-up their capacity quickly, so they can get their product to market. With system level expertise, Husky can help customers leap to the next level of highly efficient production. Husky’s system-level approach team helps to identify the overall production opportunities, develop the suitable solution and then continues to support the process through advanced connectivity tools.
The UltraShot can go from a prototype tool directly to a high cavitation system since the system behaviour is identical, regardless of the number of cavities. A big statement, but one that Husky has demonstrated with actions and innovations, as has its customers – with actual production results.
One of its global customers, Coloplast, which specialises in the fields of ostomy care, continence care, wound and skin care, and interventional urology, were offered the opportunity to look into the Husky product development process. This led to massive amounts of confidence in their products.
Principle Process Engineer at Coloplast Teo Guldbæk said: “Working with Husky is always a pleasure. I’ve been working with Husky since 1993 and it’s always been rewarding. We have found that developing new products for future needs, which before UltraShot we thought was impossible, can be done. The downstream savings are immense, and working with Husky in this UltraShot project is giving us a lot extra. It has given us a real, strong belief in the ideas and how Husky actually works. And it’s been a pleasure.”
Innovating safely
Technology innovation must be connected to two things in the medical industry – Production Advancements and Risk Reduction. We have all witnessed exponential increases in demand driven by COVID-19. When molding medical parts, risk is a major factor in decisions as it directly translates to cost. For example, there have been scenarios wherein huge volumes of parts have had to be scrapped because of risk to human health. How can industry players reduce this risk and eliminate these scenarios? Through innovation. By ensuring parts are more consistent dimensionally, with perfect balance and by having a more stable process. Plus, connecting innovation with risk reduction, the UltraShot offers repeatability with pressure monitoring and traceability, so any issues are traceable and caught in real time. This virtually eliminates the ‘high-risk’ scenario.
Medical companies often invest large amounts of money on part quality verification tools that offer post-mold measurements because their system is unable to sense whether parts are good or bad. With the UltraShot, the need for these expensive measurement tools can be eliminated.
The UltraShot enables molders to design for part function instead of being limited by process capabilities, which leads to a higher quality and finer products. The assembly of medical parts has always been a risk for patients, meaning risk for scrap if the parts produced are unsuitable. Now product designs can be further optimized for function enabling a new quality and safety standard. With the UltraShot technology, this risk is eliminated.
Transforming the ways in which injection molding machinery performs required novel research and development methods. Husky therefore took a holistic look at the injection molding process, especially where deficiencies were located. For the development of the UltraShot, these requirements had to be addressed head-on in order to develop a product that didn’t just advance injection molding processes, but a product that addresses market needs and deficiencies. With this product, Husky continues to show that it is well connected to the needs of its customers.
Connectivity
It also comes down to connectivity and smart manufacturing. The idea of connecting all equipment to gather useful information, upon which manufacturers make decisions and recommendations, is key. Real-time process monitoring is so important and leads to better overall processes. With the UltraShot, Husky has combined multiple different control technologies into a single unit, taking monitoring information from the mold itself. This has enabled the company to make process adjustment decisions extremely quickly – far faster than in a typical molding cell. It is a fully closed loop communication process that includes remote monitoring to remotely log in to facilities all over the world, and therefore provide ultimate support with direct access. This is another trend that has grown in unforeseen ways during the COVID-19 pandemic. With limited traveling ability, Husky’s engineers can act on information in real time. This holistic, full mold control solution reduces process risk significantly.
Conclusion
The melt delivery system is critical to the injection molding cell performance. With Ultrashot, Husky masters the delivery of plastic in a way that increases part design flexibility, while reducing risk and improving part quality and speed of mold qualification. It is the perfect fit for medical part producers looking to scale-up, implement more efficient process control, address competitive marketplaces, as well as reduce scrap, waste and cost.