EFFECTS OF COOLING CHANNEL DIAMETER, DISTANCE, AND PITCH IN PLASTIC INJECTION MOLDING

Abstract

A straight drilled or conventional cooling channel is a linear cooling pathway that circulates around the mold cavity to regulate temperature during the plastic injection molding process. The cooling phase accounts for 70% of the plastic injection molding process, making it crucial to design the cooling channel for reducing cycle time while upholding part quality. This study aims to analyze the effects of cooling channel parameters on the product cavity. The parameters under consideration are the cooling channel's diameter, pitch, and distance. Various designs of cooling channels were examined. This study employed a food container lid made from polypropylene (PP) as a product case study. A 3D model of the food container lid and Straight Drilled Cooling Channel (SDCC) was created using CATIA V5, and these models were subsequently imported into Autodesk Moldflow Insight for simulation analysis. Four results were obtained from the simulation analysis, namely time to reach ejection temperature, average temperature, volumetric shrinkage, and deflection. The results indicate that increasing the diameter and pitch of cooling channels leads to a decrease in the average part temperature and the time required to reach ejection temperature. Conversely, increasing the distance between cooling channels results in an increase in the average part temperature and the time required to reach ejection temperature.