Honeywell Standardises Specimen Mouldings With Axxicon AIM™ Mould System

Honeywell EA&S’s activities are coordinated by the company’s R&D facilities in Morristown, NJ, USA.

In 1995, EA&S selected the AXXICON ISO MANUFACTURED (AIM) Mould System, a multi-functional modular injection mould system with interchangeable inserts. This system is capable of producing plastic specimens for international standard quality tests such as ISO, ASTM, and DIN, using conventional injection moulding machines. Use of the AIM Mould System ensures that quality control, quality assurance and R&D studies and tests meet all present-day industry standards, yet provide the flexibility to adapt to other existing or new to be introduced standards on a local or worldwide scale.

“As part of Honeywell EA&S’s global focus we need to ensure that we maintain the same standards worldwide” says Tom Krolick, Team Leader, Materials Processing at the Morristown location.

The need to provide global standards for tests, combined with the ability to provide test data in local format, has led to the search for flexible but fully standardized test equipment. Tom Krolick: “In line with the global advance of the CAMPUS® (Computer Aided Material Pre-selection by Uniform Standards) database, we need to be able to carry out tests according to ISO. At the same time we currently need to be able to provide ASTM data to customers. Our ability to meet any future changes determines the flexibility we can extend toward our customers.”

The AIM Mould System consists of a base mould and interchangeable product forming inserts. The base mould frame may be installed into any standard injection moulding machine. One of a series of product forming inserts is then placed in the base mould to produce test specimens.

As the weight of the insert is only 5 kilograms, it can be changed manually or robotically without having to remove the base mould. This makes it possible to produce short runs of specimens under pre-determined conditions.

The range of standard inserts currently available for the AIM Mould System allows for the production of, amongst others, test bars, plaques, spiral flows, and color or step chips. These specimens are commonly used to determine a material’s characteristics such as tensile strength, izod and charpy impact strength, hardness, flammability and color match.

Today, the AIM Mould System is being used by leading raw material suppliers as well as compounders, OEM’s, moulders, test institutes, and universities in over 25 countries. According to Axxicon Account Manager, Twan van den Eijnden, there are a number of reasons why the AIM Mould System has been so successful since its first introduction 15 years ago: “The first reason is the speed with which the inserts can be changed. Their lightweight makes them easy to handle. Thanks to an incorporated quick coupling system of cooling channels, inserts may be changed over in less than 30 seconds. Another key reason is their design flexibility. Apart from supplying ISO standard inserts from stock, Axxicon Moulds Helmond BV is able to manufacture inserts for the production of test specimens according to standards (ASTM, UL94, etc.) or custom-made products (color plaques).”

Van den Eijnden explains how the AIM Mould System also delivers considerable savings in cost and time when compared to traditional, not recommended, ‘family moulds’. “There is no need to produce large numbers of different samples per shot, only those specific samples required for any particular test are produced, thus avoiding waste”, notes van den Eijnden.

And finally,” says van den Eijnden, “Axxicon Moulds Helmond BV provides an unrivalled level of after-sales service. This includes a manual, maintenance kit + spare parts, installation and personnel training by Axxicon specialists.”

Having a successful product, however, has not made Axxicon Moulds Helmond BV complacent. Twan van den Eijnden: “We are currently re-engineering the AIM Mould System and working on extending the AIM product by offering additional product packages and enhancements.” According to, “One particular enhancement noted by