The Effectiveness, Benefits, and Challenges of Virtual Prototyping in the Product Development of Injected Plastic Components of Lead Acid Battery

Abstract

The aim of this master’s thesis was how Virtual Prototyping could be utilized to enhance the product development in injection process of plastic components of lead-acid battery and to find out whether Virtual Prototyping would have potential to reduce the overall product development time and to develop an implementation method for VP during design phases, which would make the current development process more efficient by reducing the number of resources spent in physical prototyping. Also included to find out whether the co-operation between product development and production department could be made better-off by improving the communication interface by suitable VP implementation method during the early product development phases. It is also focused on improving product quality, especially in their internal requirements, e.g. manufacturability and assembly properties.

Since much of my career has been devoted to researching and designing plastic injection mold, that is why I undertook this research project to assess the feasibility of virtual prototyping or numerical analysis using Virtual Prototyping Injection Molding (VPIM). My goal is to identify the level of effectiveness, describe the current state and assess the future applications of virtual prototyping, also the benefits of VP in the engineering design process, and its relevance in today's business fast pace product development. I am confident that virtual prototyping can significantly influence acquisition in the future. I am about the usefulness of virtual prototyping as an aid in the design, manufacturing, and testing of injected plastic components of a lead-acid battery in the injection process.