What abilities should a qualified mold design engineer possess?

Foreword

As the "mother of industry", molds play an important role in the development of the national economy. Various daily necessities in our daily lives are inseparable from the mass production of molds. In fields such as electronics, automobiles, home appliances, and communications, 60% to 80% of parts are formed by molds. The high precision, high complexity, high consistency, high productivity and low consumption of parts produced by molds are unmatched by other processing techniques. Molds are also "efficiency amplifiers". The value of the final product produced with the mold is often dozens or hundreds of times the value of the mold itself. At present, the annual output value of molds in the world is about 60 billion US dollars. The level of mold production technology has become an important symbol to measure the level of a country's product manufacturing.

With the development of society, people have higher requirements for the appearance and more diverse functions of products, and correspondingly, the requirements for molds are also getting higher and higher. As a result, many new mold types and technologies have been derived. Mold structures are becoming increasingly complex, mold accuracy is more precise, and the skill requirements for mold practitioners are getting higher and higher. The level of mold design also directly affects the quality of the mold.

For many mold friends, what should they know about mold design? What abilities should a qualified mold design engineer possess? These concepts are relatively vague. Now I will make a unified summary for your reference.

What abilities should a qualified mold design engineer have?

1. Mechanical design

Molds are mechanical products and require mastering the knowledge and skills of mechanical design to be able to design molds with reasonable structures and reliable functions.

2. Material science

The material selection of the mold has an important impact on the service life, production efficiency and product quality of the mold. It is necessary to understand the performance and application range of various materials and choose the most appropriate material.

3. Mold steel/heat treatment

4. Plastic raw materials/molding process

5. Software UG, CAD, MOLDFLOW, CATIA, Solidworks, etc.

Most modern molds use CNC processing technology, which requires mastering CNC programming skills and the use of CAD/UG and other technologies. You must be proficient in using CAD/UG and other software to design molds and write efficient and accurate processing programs.

6. Mold processing technology

It is necessary to master various mold processing techniques, such as milling, turning, EDM, wire cutting, etc., and be able to process and repair molds.

7. Mold debugging and maintenance

The mold needs to be debugged and maintained to ensure the stability and accuracy of the mold during use.

8. Surface treatment etching/electroplating/silk screen printing/spray painting

9. Good communication skills

Mold engineers need to communicate with leaders, production departments, quality inspection departments, suppliers, users, etc. They need to have strong communication skills, be able to accurately understand requirements, and cooperate with others to complete work.