Ribs are used in injection casting design to improve melt flow and increase part stiffness. They are most effective when placed perpendicular to bending forces or diagonally for parts under torsion. When designing ribs, their thickness should be no more than half the part wall thickness and their height no more than three times the wall thickness. Ribs should have rounded corners and be spaced at least twice the wall thickness apart. They are manufactured using spark machining and their design must consider factors like flow, venting, filling, and weld lines to enable efficient production.
Ribs are used in injection casting design to improve melt flow and increase part stiffness. They are most effective when placed perpendicular to bending forces or diagonally for parts under torsion. When designing ribs, their thickness should be no more than half the part wall thickness and their height no more than three times the wall thickness. Ribs should have rounded corners and be spaced at least twice the wall thickness apart. They are manufactured using spark machining and their design must consider factors like flow, venting, filling, and weld lines to enable efficient production.
Ribs are used in injection casting design to improve melt flow and increase part stiffness. They are most effective when placed perpendicular to bending forces or diagonally for parts under torsion. When designing ribs, their thickness should be no more than half the part wall thickness and their height no more than three times the wall thickness. Ribs should have rounded corners and be spaced at least twice the wall thickness apart. They are manufactured using spark machining and their design must consider factors like flow, venting, filling, and weld lines to enable efficient production.
Ribs are used in injection casting design to improve melt flow and increase part stiffness. They are most effective when placed perpendicular to bending forces or diagonally for parts under torsion. When designing ribs, their thickness should be no more than half the part wall thickness and their height no more than three times the wall thickness. Ribs should have rounded corners and be spaced at least twice the wall thickness apart. They are manufactured using spark machining and their design must consider factors like flow, venting, filling, and weld lines to enable efficient production.
Ribs are used mainly for two purposes: to improve melt flow into a section, like corner or large boss and to increase flexural stiffness of the part. Designing thin walled plastic products one the most difficult problems is how to reach sufficient stiffness. The most economical way to increase stiffness may be using reinforcing ribs. Ribs should be placed on the moulds opening direction. Transverse ribs are alsopossiblebutmakingoftheminthemouldisnoteasy.Forpartsunderbending, ribs should be placed perpendicular to the bending moment. For parts under tor sion,ribsshouldbeplaceddiagonally.
Ribs offer structural advantages but they can also lead to appearance problems. The first thing when designing ribs is to determine dimensional limitations based onwhatshapetheribhastobetakenintoaccountproductsstrengthandappear ance and economical production. There are also few other points that have to be takenintoaccountwhendesigningribs:
Ribscanbeusedalsoassupportribs,whichmaybeconsideredasreinforcements Supportingribs for corners, side walls or bosses. It is important to remember that plastic material beingusedhastobetakenintoaccount.Materialpropertieslikemeltviscosityand mould shrinkage have notable effect on rib design. The following guidelines are suggestedwhendesigningsupportribs:
T=wallthickness D=reinforcingedgethickness A= length of rib face attached to component A,A2T B=distancebetweensuccessiveribfaces,B 2T C=ribthickness,0.7TC0.5T
Usuallyribsaremadeonthemouldbysparkmachining.Iftheproductsgeometry Manufacturing is complicated, tens or hundred spark electrodes is needed. Spark machining is a slow machining method and an unwise rib design can lead to very expensive mouldconstructionandlengthenmouldsdeliverytime.Whenthedepthofthepart grows,abovementionedproblemswillincrease. Fromamanufacturingpointofviewribsshouldbeplacedinlinewiththeflowfor assisting both venting and filling. Some times ribs can also be used as internal runners orflow leaders for assist filling and packing. When designing ribs,a de signer should be very careful with complicated gating, ribbed parts, that are producedinmouldsthathavemanycoresandlongflowlengthsbecausetherewill likelyweldlines.Whenweldlinesareformedalongtheribs,thedesignershouldbe that the maximum outer fibre stresses do not exceed the value of materials weld linestrength.
