Cooling Analysis of Cylindrical Void Method for an Injection Mould in Injection Moulding Process

Abstract

As a matter of fact, the cooling method selection is one of the most important steps in the design of injection mould. However, inappropriate cooling system will result in many undesired defects such as differential shrinkage and warpage on the moulded part. From this point of view, the comprehensive study of cylindrical void method (CVM) has been attempted in this study which is known as an alternative effective cooling method. Therefore, this study employs the three-dimensional time-dependent numerical analysis to determine the performance of cooling injection moulding. Initially, a finite element method is used to solve the system of equations of the flow and heat transfer problem. Subsequently, the temperature fields and other analysis results have been obtained via ANSYS Workbench. The study reveals that the Nusselt number, Biot Number and heat flux at the fluid–core interface are smaller when the CVM method is being used compared to the straight-drilled method. These results are mainly attributed to the presence of big vortices which prevent a complete heat transfer. Consequently, the use of the CVM method does not improve the cooling efficiency, but it is a good idea and requires further investigation.