【正文】 ORIGINAL ARTICLEModular design applied to beveragecontainerinjection moldsMingShyan Huang amp。 MingKai HsuReceived: 16 March 2020 /Accepted: 15 June 2020 /Published online: 25 June 2020 SpringerVerlag London Limited 2020Abstract This work applies modular design concepts todesignating beveragecontainer injection molds. This studyaims to develop a method of controlling costs and time inrelation to mold development, and also to improve productdesign. This investigation prises two parts: functionality coding, and establishing a standard operation procedure,specifically designed for beveragecontainer injection molddesign and manufacturing. First, the injection mold isdivided into several modules, each with a specific function.Each module is further divided into several structural unitspossessing subfunction or subsubfunction. Next, dimensions and specifications of each unit are standardized and apatible interface is constructed linking relevant units.This work employs a cupshaped beverage container toexperimentally assess the performance of the modulardesign approach. The experimental results indicate thatthe modular design approach to manufacturing injectionmolds shortens development time by 36% and reducescosts by 19～23% pared with the conventional approach. Meanwhile, the information on modularity helpsdesigners in diverse products design. Additionally, thefunctionality code helps effectively manage and maintainproducts and molds.Keywords Beverage container.Injection mold.Modulardesign.Product family1 IntroductionRecently, growing market petition and increasinglydiverse customer demand has forced petitors toincrease the speed at which they deliver new products tothe market. However, developing a mold for mass production requires considering numerous factors, includingproduct geometry, dimensions, and accuracy, leading tolong product development time. Introducing modulardesign concepts into product design appears a key meanof facilitating product development, since it increasesdesign flexibility and shortens delivery time [1–4]. Meanwhile, a high level of product modularity enhances productinnovativeness, flexibility, and customer services [5].Modularity is to subdivide a plex product intomodules that can be independently created and then areeasily used interchangeably [6, 7]. There are three generalfields where modularity could be implemented includingmodularity in design (MID), modularity in use (MIU), andmodularity in production (MIP) [8]. MID involves standardizing basic structural units which perform specificfunctions, thus facilitating flexible assembly of variousproducts [9, 10]. MID can reveal product structure, namelythe relationship among different products. Related productsare termed product family and include both basic andspecific functions. Developing product families offersbenefits in terms of multipurpose design and thus reducesproduction costs [11, 12]. MIU is consumerdriven deposition of a product with a view to satisfying the ease ofuse and individually. MIP enables the factory floor to prebine a large number of ponents into modules andthese modules to be assembled offline and then broughtonto the main assembly line to be incorporated into a smalland simple series of tasks.. Huang (*):. HsuDepartment of Mechanical and Automation Engineering andGraduate Institute of Industrial Design,National Kaohsiung First University of Science and Technology,2 Jhuoyue Road, Nanzih,Kaohsiung City 811, Taiwan, Republic of China Int J Adv Manuf Technol (2020) 53:1–10DOI MID has been broadly applied to numerous areas andhas exerted significant effects in terms of cost reduction anddesign diversity [13, 14]. However, there is limitedempirical research that has applied modular design tomolds [15–18]. This study thus aims to reduce molddevelopment time by applying modular design and developa standard operation procedure for designing beveragecontainer injection molds, which are characterized byscores or even hundreds of ponents.2 General procedures of designing injection moldsBasically, an injection mold set consists of two primaryponents, the female mold and the male mold. Themolten plastic enters the cavity through a sprue in thefemale mold. The sprue directs the molten plastic flowingthrough runners and entering gates and into the cavitygeometry to form the desired part. Sides of the part thatappear parallel with the direction of the mold opening aretypically angled slightly to ease rejection of the part fromthe mold. The draft angle required for mold release isprimarily dependent on the depth of the cavity and theshrinkage rate of plastic materials. The mold is usuallydesigned so that the molded part reliably remains on themale mold when it opens. Ejector pins or ejector plate isplaced in either half of the mold, which pushes the finishedmolded product or runner system out of a mold. Thestandard method of cooling is passing a coolant through aseries of holes drilled through the mold plates andconnected by hoses to form a continuous pathway. Thecoolant absorbs heat from the mold and keeps the mold at aproper temperature to solidify the plastic at the mostefficient rate. To ease maintenance and venting, cavitiesand cores are divided into pieces, called inserts. Bysubstituting interchangeable inserts, one mold may makeseveral variations of the same part.General mold design process contains two parts [19]:part design and mold design. The part design processcontains five major procedures: defining main pullingdirection, defining core and cavity, calculating shrinkagerate,