Blister Formation in Film Insert Moulding

The formation of blister in the injection moulded parts, especially in the film insert moulded parts, is one of most significant causes of part rejection due to cosmetic requirements or functionality issues. The mechanism and physics of blister formation for molded parts are not well-understood by the state-of-the-art literature. The current paper increases the fundamental understanding of the causes for blister formation. In the experiment, a membrane strip of 5 mm in width was overmoulded with Polypropylene (PP), which formed a disc-shaped part with a diameter of 17.25 mm and a thickness of 500 μm. To investigate the influence of the processing parameters, a full factorial design of experiments (DoE) setup was conducted, including mould temperature (Tm), barrel temperature (Tb), injection speed (Vi) and packing pressure (Pp) as variables. The degree of blistering at the surface was characterized by the areal surface roughness parameters Spk and Smr1, measured with a confocal laser microscope. The measurements were taken on the 10 mm long section of the membrane surface in the centre of the moulded part across the entire width of the film. In addition, the film insert moulding (FIM)-process was simulated and the average shrinkage of the substrate material under the membrane was investigated. Eventually, a method and processing window could be defined that could produce blister-free parts.