| Abstract: | Orientation of reinforcement fibers in injection molded parts is a key factor in determining their strength and stiffness: therefore stress-strain analyses based on isotropic material models produce only rough results. We present a flow/strain analysis methodology that accounts for the actual anisotropic material properties and fiber orientation. Material properties are determined by experiment, fiber orientation is inferred from flow simulation results (velocity vectors). Stress/strain fields are calculated by means of finite element analysis. Results show that for notched parts molded from short glass reinforced polyamide resin, there is a significant dependence of the strain concentration on the local fiber orientation resulting from different injection molding conditions. |
