In the engineering design phases of a product, draft is often added on different surfaces of the part to help with injection molding. The draft angle added can be as low as 1 degree on the surface, the magnitude of draft angle depends on how critical the relevant vertex or surface is. The benefits of including a draft angle on different surfaces includes decreasing the chances of damaging the part during the release of mold due to the friction on the mold surface, which a steeper surface reduce the area of contact while the release movement. But this is not just yet, the inclusion of draft angle also provides protection to the mold itself as the wear to the mold will be minimized during the removal of the part.
And to construct a decent injection molding design, the Draft Analysis tool in SOLIDWORKS comes in handy. It displays the drafted and undrafted surface and allows us to distinguish the positive and negative drafted surface of the part by showing us different colors on the respective surface. The result of the analysis helps us on deciding the drafting direction of different surfaces, with the goal of having a uniform parting line, which is the line where the two different sides of the mold meets in injection molding. The parting line is governed by the location of change of direction of the draft angle, by having a uniform parting line and having it located at a sharp corner, it improve the quality and also the efficiency of ejection at the mold opening.
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