Conformal Cooling Channels in Injection Molding Tools – Design Considerations (original) (raw)
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Conformal Cooling for Molds Produced by Additive Manufacturing: A Review
The present research study demonstrates a critical review on the permanent molds used for injection molding, pressure die casting and investment casting has one common task of dissipating the heat from the mold effectively for better production, longer tool life and better surface quality of the components being produced. Conventional method of keeping the mold cooler during the casting process is achieved by drilling the cross holes and then attaching to the coolant media. This follows the straight line profile owing to the process limitation and creates non-uniform cooling for a contoured surface. Hence the effectiveness of the cooling compromised where the cavities or punches are having more curvilinear surfaces. The method of making the cooling channels to follow the contour of parts is called conformal cooling. Earlier it was very difficult to produce such cooling channels, but with the invention of additive manufacturing, last few decades has witnessed a lot of experimentation and advancement in the field of conformal cooling.
Effects of Conformal Cooling Channels on Additively Manufactured Injection Molding Tooling
2020
This research shows the potential that conformal cooling channels have to help improve additively manufactured tooling life for injection molding. As shown in other research done, the ability to maintain the mold below 120°F significantly improves the life of additively manufactured tooling. The results of this study demonstrate the effectiveness of conformal cooling channels in controlling mold temperature. It should be researched further, but the use of conformal cooling channels has the potential to produce more production or prototype parts with additively manufactured tooling for injection molding.
Thermal analysis of conformal cooling channel in injection molding
IRJET, 2023
Injection molding is a typical method for producing plastic goods because of its high productivity, efficiency, and capacity to be molded into a broad range of things. Using numerical simulation, this study examines how using conformal cooling channels in plastic injection molds differs from using conventional cooling channel. The purpose of this comparison is to look into the benefits and drawbacks of using conformal cooling channels. Thus, this study aims to utilize the flexibility and reduced constraints of additive manufacturing (AM) to develop a novel method of cooling. Step one in the process involves revamping the cooling system used in a mold for an automobile component (used by a company that collaborates in the present study). The most notable results include a decrease of about 10.6 % % in the amount of cooling time required to reach the extraction temperature; a decrease of about 23.3 % in the temperature of the part; and a decrease of about 26.1 % in the temperature of the mold
Optimal Conformal Cooling Channels in 3D Printed Dies for Plastic Injection Molding
Procedia Manufacturing, 2016
Reducing the cycle time in plastic injection molding is of significant importance to industry. One approach that has been proposed is to use conformal cooling channels, made possible by 3D printing which allows for greater geometric freedom. In this paper, a systematic approach is proposed to replace traditionally designed straight cooling channels in dies (for plastic injection molding) with optimally designed conformal cooling channels. First, a numerical model is developed to represent the thermal behavior and predict the cycle time. Next, the model is validated experimentally and used in conjunction with DOE (Design of Experiments) to study the effect of different design parameters of the channels on the die performance. Based on this study, an optimal design is identified. Future work includes using DMLS (Direct Metal Laser Sintering) additive manufacturing to print dies with optimal conformal cooling channels for testing and validation.
Metal Additive Manufacturing of Plastic Injection Molds with Conformal Cooling Channels
Polymers
Conformal cooling channels (CCCs) are widely used in the plastic injection molding process to improve the product quality and operational performance. Tooling that incorporates CCCs can be fabricated through metal additive manufacturing (MAM). The present work focuses on the MAM of a plastic injection mold insert with different CCC types that are circular, serpentine, and tapered channels with/without body-centered cubic (BCC) lattices. The entire manufacturing process of the mold insert is explained from the design step to the final printing step including the computational thermal & mechanical simulations, performance assessments, and multiobjective optimization. Compared to the traditional channels, conformal cooling channels achieved up to 62.9% better cooling performance with a better thermal uniformity on the mold surface. The optimum mold geometry is decided using the multiobjective optimization procedure according to the multiple objectives of cooling time, temperature non-u...
Design and optimisation of conformal cooling channels in injection moulding tools
Journal of Materials Processing …, 2005
With increasingly short life span on consumer electronic products such as mobile phones becoming more fashionable, injection moulding remains the most popular method for producing the associated plastic parts. The process requires a molten polymer being injected into a cavity inside a mould, which is cooed and the part ejected. The main phases in an injection moulding process therefore involve filling, cooling and ejection. The cost-efficiency of the process is dependent on the time spent in the moulding cycle. Correspondingly, the cooling phase is the most significant step amongst the three, it determines the rate at which the parts are produced. The main objective of this study was to determine an optimum and efficient design for conformal cooling/heating channels in the configuration of an injection moulding tool using FEA and thermal heat transfer analysis. An optimum shape of a 3D CAD model of a typical component suitable for injection moulding was designed and the core and cavity tooling required to mould the part then generated. These halves were used in the FEA and thermal analyses, first determining the best location for the gate and later the cooling channels. These two factors contribute the most in the cycle time and if there is to be a significant reduction in the cycle time, then these factors have to be optimised and minimised. Analysis of virtual models showed that those with conformal cooling channels predicted a significantly reduced cycle time as well as marked improvement in the general quality of the surface finish when compared to a conventionally cooled mould.
2019
The design capabilities of tool designers have been enhanced through the use of additive manufacturing in the tool making environment, by lending its greatest advantage: freedom of design. The efficiency of injection mould tooling is positively influenced by an enhanced cooling rate achieved through conformal cooling, which in turn has a positive influence on the quality of the parts produced. The refinement of design rules for conformal cooling channels serves to further enhance the use of additive manufacturing in the injection moulding industry. This paper reports on a determination of the limitations of conformal cooling channels built through Direct Metal Laser Sintering. 1Department of Design & Studio Art Central University of Technology Free State, South Africa iadam@cut.ac.za 2,3 Department of Mechanical Engineering Central University of Technology Free State, South Africa 2wdupreez@cut.ac.za 3jcombrinck@cut.ac.za 4Ametex (Pty) Ltd marius@ametex.co.za 1 The author was enroll...
Thermal and mechanical analysis for conformal cooling channel in plastic injection molding
Materials Today: Proceedings, 2019
Injection molding is widely used in plastic product manufacturing process. The product quality and the cost-effectiveness highly depend on the cooling step in the molding process. Thanks to the development of additive manufacturing techniques, conformal cooling channel (CCC) becomes a promising alternative for channel design. In this paper, three CCCs with different profiles and the same aspect ratio are designed for cooling a plastic product in its manufacturing process. The thermal and mechanical performance is presented by ANSYS Workbench. The simulation results are validated by the experimental data. The cooling performance under different coolant flow rate and different inlet temperature are simulated and compared. The thermal results show that compared with conventional straight channel, the designed CCCs can shorten the cooling time ranging from 10% to 57.1% and the temperature distribution of the plastic product is uniform as well. The mechanical results show that the fatigue life and von Mises stress of the designed CCCs can meet the industrial operating requirement.
Dynamic conformal cooling improves injection molding
The International Journal of Advanced Manufacturing Technology, 2021
To achieve a certain visual quality or acceptable surface appearance in injection-molded components, a higher mold surface temperature is needed. In order to achieve this, injection molds can be dynamically tempered by integrating an active heating and cooling process inside the mold halves. This heating and cooling of the mold halves becomes more efficient when the temperature change occurs closer to the mold surface. Complex channels that carry cold or hot liquids can be manufactured close to the mold surface by using the layer by layer principle of additive manufacturing. Laser powder bed fusion (L-PBF), as an additive manufacturing process, has special advantages; in particular, so-called hybrid tools can be manufactured. For example, complex tool inserts with conformal cooling channels can be additively built on simple, machined baseplates. This paper outlines the thermal simulation carried out to optimize the injection molding process by use of dynamic conformal cooling. Based...
Volume 2B: 44th Design Automation Conference, 2018
Additive manufacturing allows the fabrication parts and tools of high complexity. This capability challenges traditional guidelines in the design of conformal cooling systems in heat exchangers, injection molds, and other parts and tools. Innovative design methods, such as network-based approaches, lattice structures, and structural topology optimization have been used to generate complex and highly efficient cooling systems; however, methods that incorporate coupled thermal and fluid analysis remain scarce. This paper introduces a coupled thermalfluid topology optimization algorithm for the design of conformal cooling channels. With this method, the channel position problem is replaced to a material distribution problem. The material distribution directly depends on the effect of flow resistance, heat conduction, as well as forced and natural convection. The problem is formulated based on a coupling of Navier-Stokes equations and convection-diffusion equation. The problem is solved by gradient-based optimization after analytical sensitivity derived using the adjoint method. The algorithm leads a two-dimensional conceptual design having optimal heat transfer and balanced flow. The conceptual design is converted to threedimensional channels and mapped to a morphological surface conformal to the injected part. The method is applied to design an optimal conformal cooling for a real three dimensional injection mold. The feasibility of the final designs is verified through simulations. The final designs can be exported as both three-dimensional graphic and surface mesh CAD format, bringing the manufacture department the convenience to run the tool path for final fitting. Keywords: thermal-fluid coupled topology optimization; conformal cooling; injection mold; additive manufacturing. offering significant reduction of cost savings [1]. 1.1 Advanced cooling system design for injection molds These advanced design approaches can be categorized into Morphological Surfaces (MS) based cooling network, lattice cooling (LC) layer and optimized conformal cooling system. A Morphological Surface (MS) is defined as an expand offset surface of the injected part, in which the cooling channels are re