CIMP History and Background

  CIMP Program Leaders

  CIMP's Goals

CIMP History and Background

In the early of 1970’s a small group at Cornell began an innovative venture in which industry and academia would cooperate to advance an important area of technology. The Cornell Injection Molding Program (CIMP) began operations in 1974.

The dream, back in 1974, was to place injection molding - then a "rule of thumb" technique - on a firm scientific basis. It was an ambitious dream, pursued by hard practical questions. Would it be possible to understand and predict the complex interactions that occur in the injection-molding process? And if so, could industrial practitioners be convinced to try the new scientific methods?

Today, the dream has become a reality. CIMP is recognized not only as one of the organizations that took injection molding out of its dark ages, but as one of the most vigorous injection-molding research groups in the world. A look at the history of the program, its current activities, and its prospects is presented here.

The person with the original idea was K. K. Wang of Cornell's Sibley School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, who has been the director of CIMP from the beginning. The project has been made possible by initial and continuing funding from the National Science Foundation. Many graduate students have worked on the project and gone on to advance the field in industry and academia. And a crucial element has been the support of industry, both financially and in the research. The CIMP Industrial Consortium, formed in 1979, was comprised more than fifty major corporations worldwide. As Professor Wang approaches the final phase of his retirement, CIMP plans to disseminate its intellectual properties to the public in the near future.

CIMP Program Leaders

K. K. Wang
director of CIMP, Sibley Professor of Mechanical Engineering Emeritus at Cornell's Sibley School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering.
He earned the B.S.M.E. degree at National Central University in China in 1947, and studied at the University of Wisconsin for M.S.M.E. and Ph.D. degrees. After two years of teaching at Wisconsin, he joined the Cornell faculty in 1970.

Wang has had many years of broad industrial experience related to design and manufacturing engineering, and has received many professional honors, including a TRW fellowship and awards from the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME), Wm. T. Ennor Manufacturing Technology Award (ASME), the Society of Manufacturing Engineers (SME), and the American Welding Society. He is a fellow of the ASME and of the SME, and a member of the National Academy of Engineers. He received the Distinguished Service Citation from the University of Wisconsin, Madison and the Achievement Award from the Chinese Institute of Engineers.

C. A. Hieber
a senior research associate, is the associate director of CIMP and a member of the research team.
He holds three degrees in mechanical engineering: the B.M.E. from Cooper Union (1964) and the M.S. (1966) and Ph.D. (1970) from Cornell. He joined the CIMP staff in 1974 after teaching for four years at Clarkson College.

Hieber has published more than a score of papers in major journals, and serves as a reviewer for the Journal of Heat Transfer, the International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer, Polymer Engineering and Science, and the National Science Foundation.

Claude Cohen
a professor of chemical engineering at Cornell, has been a member of the faculty since 1977. He served as Director of the School of Chemical Engineering from 1990 to 1993.
He received a B.S. degree in 1966 from the American University in Egypt, and a Ph.D. in 1972 from Princeton University. Before joining the Cornell faculty in 1977, he was a Katzir-Katchalsky fellow at the Weizmann Institute in Israel and a research associate at the California Institute of Technology.

Cohen uses polymer science and engineering to interpret the physical properties of polymer systems and composites, and to understand structure-property relationships in these materials.

CIMP's Goals

From the beginning, the purpose of CIMP has been to apply scientific principles to the injection-molding process.
At first the researchers looked at simple problems involved in the injection molding of polymers. The initial objective was to understand the mold-filling stage; later the packing and cooling stages were considered. Soon the goal was enlarged to include the development of a comprehensive computer program to deal with all aspects of the process, from mold design to process control. The program was also expanded to include other technologies similar in nature to the injection-molding of plastics - specifically, ceramic injection molding and metal casting. The program continues to expand to keep up with current demands in manufacturing.

An important aspect of the program is the involvement of researchers from industry through the CIMP Industrial Consortium. Both the program and the consortium members benefit: CIMP receives economic support and the industrial members have access to proprietary software and publications and can call on the program staff for advice and consultation.

The program has also made contributions by generating a large number of papers that are frequently referred to by outside researchers in the field of injection molding.