Injection moulding system and method that determine optimum injection moulding conditions

Abstract

An injection moulding system optimises the injection moulding process by removing selected articles (100) from a plurality of articles produced cyclically and tests a plurality of physical properties (105) of the removed articles including dimensions (106), weight (108) and gloss (107), together with a plurality of process parameters (109, 110) such as nozzle pressure and nozzle temperature. Adjustment of the process (121) is made automatically on the basis of up to three optimisers (114), including a case based reasoning optimiser (115), a fuzzy optimiser (116) and a rule based reasoning optimiser (117), in order to achieve pre-set article properties. The optimisers (114) can have confidence factors associated therewith, determined on the effect of previous process adjustments.

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