Effect of tool finishing on ejection forces for injection moulded parts made using direct metal laser sintered tools

Abstract

With the continuing development of Rapid Prototyping technologies, there has been a move into areas of Rapid Tooling. This takes advantage of the shorter lead times and lower costs associated with the production of tooling, particularly for injection moulding. This paper analyses the effectiveness of using direct metal laser sintering to produce injection-moulding tools, in terms of the force required to eject a part from a tool. Different levels of finishing were applied to test tools, and the results show that in some cases the forces required to eject parts from direct metal laser sintered tools were comparable with those from machined tools.