To meet the increasing demand for accuracy, there should be tight control over the profile of the lens

manufactured. To ensure the accuracy of the profile, effective optimization technique is required. Garg [4] proposed the percentage compensation technique, but some mistakes were found during its implementation. Hence the objective was to correct these mistakes and to improve the result. Non-Isothermal Glass Molding is useful to increase the productivity and mold life. Also it more correctly represents the actual molding process, as temperature is not constant during molding. The objectives of this project work are: 1. Optimization of mold shape for Isothermal Glass Molding Process (IGMP).

2. Develop Finite Element (FE) model and carry out optimization of mold shape for NonIsothermal Glass Molding Process (NGMP). 3. 4. Determine how the process parameters affect the induced stresses in the glass. Perform Adaptive Meshing to prevent mesh distortion.

There is need to develop the FE model which will fully characterize the Non-Isothermal Glass Molding Process. Studies have been performed by Zhou et al. [7] on L-BAL 35. It was decided to repeat the process as the TRS properties given by Zhou et al. [7] were different from these available in the literature [8]. Also during simulation, we found that the elements at the center of the glass underwent extensive distortion and many of the elements got completely collapsed. It was therefore decided to perform the simulation using Adaptive Meshing.

Chapter 4 Mold Shape Optimization

4.1 Introduction
To be competitive in the market one needs to keep high quality and low cost. Mass production can significantly reduce the cost of one unit of product. It is proposed to simulate the precision glass molding process so that correct mold shape could be made to achieve. Precision glass molding process involves various stages like heating, molding, slow cooling, fast cooling and natural cooling. Description of various stages as per Garg [4] is as follows: Heating First, the glass blank and mold assembly are heated from room temperature to molding temperature (600C 700C).

Molding In this stage, glass is pressed between the dies to form the lens. During this stage temperature of assembly is kept constant. Slow cooling This stage involves cooling of glass lens and mold below the glass transition temperature at a very slow cooling rate. In this stage glass lens is kept in compressed position and cooling is done by flowing nitrogen on the outer surface of the mold. Fast cooling In this stage, cooling is done at a faster rate till 200C and at the end of this stage lens is released. Natural cooling Lens is then kept in open atmosphere and cooled by natural convection to the room temperature. Temperature variation of the process with time is given by Fig.4.1. Final profile of lens obtained is greatly affected by the mold shape. During cooling of the lens from molding temperature to room temperature the mold and lens undergo thermal shrinkage and also there is a spring back effect (elastic recovery) so final lens shape is different from the desired one. To get the desired lens shape at the end of cooling, the mold shape needs to be compensated for the expansion during heating, spring back effect and contraction during cooling of the glass and molds.