Abstract
Metal additive manufacturing techniques are frequently applied to the manufacturing of injection molds with a conformal cooling channel (CCC) in order to shorten the cooling time in the injection molding process. Reducing the cooling time in the cooling stage is essential to reducing the energy consumption in mass production. However, the distinct disadvantages include higher manufacturing costs and longer processing time in the fabrication of injection mold with CCC. Rapid tooling technology (RTT) is a widely utilized technology to shorten mold development time in the mold industry. In principle, the cooling time of injection molded products is affected by both injection mold material and coolant medium. However, little work has been carried out to investigate the effects of different mold materials and coolant media on the cooling performance of epoxy-based injection molds quantitatively. In this study, the effects of four different coolant media on the cooling performance of ten sets of injection molds fabricated with different mixtures were investigated experimentally. It was found that cooling water with ultrafine bubble is the best cooling medium based on the cooling efficiency of the injection molded parts (since the cooling efficiency is increased further by about 12.4% compared to the conventional cooling water). Mold material has a greater influence on the cooling efficiency than the cooling medium, since cooling time range of different mold materials is 99 s while the cooling time range for different cooling media is 92 s. Based on the total production cost of injection mold and cooling efficiency, the epoxy resin filled with 41 vol.% aluminum powder is the optimal formula for making an injection mold since saving in the total production cost about 24% is obtained compared to injection mold made with commercially available materials.
Highlights
The goal of this study is to investigate the cooling performance of epoxy-based injection molds fabricated from different mold materials using different coolant media
The evolution of the flow front during the filling stage of wax injection molding is illustrated in this figure
It shows that the filling time is approximately 2 s for the full filing of the molded part, showing the designed filling system is appropriate
Summary
Wax injection molding is a frequently applied manufacturing technique for the production of investment casting wax patterns due to time efficiency. Those approaches are not suitable for developing a new product since higher initial cost of the capital equipment and maintenance To overcome this obstacle, RT technology was developed to meet this requirement since it is a costeffective method that builds tools without the need for complex conventional machining operations. Indirect tooling is widely used to manufacture an injection mold for batch production of a new product in the research and development stage using commercial Al-filled epoxy resin. The goal of this study is to investigate the cooling performance of epoxy-based injection molds fabricated from different mold materials using different coolant media. Four different kinds of cooling media, including cooling water, compressed gas, cooling water with ultrafine bubble, and cold stream are used to study the cooling performance using a low-pressure wax injection molding
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