Rotomolding Technology: Design of Insulated Box and Composite Mold

Abstract

The present study is aimed at design and development of insulated box and its composite mold in which thermal and structural analysis of component plays crucial role. The box is very thin and used for carrying ice-cream, if it is manufactured by other method than rotational molding it is costlier one. Rotational molding is less expensive, so it is preferred over the other methods like Injection molding, Extrusion and Blow molding. Rotational molding don’t use pressurized supply of material so to ensure proper material flow in mould and directional solidification, design of mold is modified as per manufacturing requirements.

The thermal analysis is carried out to find out the insulation effect. It is a well insulated box so not much heat transfer from box to surrounding is allowed. The material for box and insulation selected with such an appropriate combination that allows storage of ice-cream for long duration. Structural analysis is carried out to confirm its ability to withstand the load of 100 liter ice-cream.

Generally, steel molds are the most commonly used to produce products in large quantities in rotational molding process. However, production companies get special orders once in a while to produce customized items that are limited to a fixed number of units. This could be costly when designing a new steel mould to produce these items due to long procedures involved in making such molds. Therefore, it is advisable that other alternatives that meet the production requirements of such items must be sought.

In this work, both mold materials and manufacturing processes are replaced in an attempt to reduce overall production costs. New approach proposed over here is use of glass reinforced composite mold manufactured by hand lay-up method.