Abstract
Rapid tooling technology (RTT) provides an alternative approach to quickly provide wax injection molds for the required products since it can reduce the time to market compared with conventional machining approaches. Removing conformal cooling channels (CCCs) is the key technology for manufacturing injection mold fabricated by rapid tooling technology. In this study, three different kinds of materials were used to fabricate CCCs embedded in the injection mold. This work explores a technology for rapid development of injection mold with high cooling performance. It was found that wax is the most suitable material for making CCCs. An innovative method for fabricating a large intermediary mold with both high load and supporting capacities for manufacturing a large rapid tooling using polyurethane foam was demonstrated. A trend equation for predicting the usage amount of polyurethane foam was proposed. The production cost savings of about 50% can be obtained. An optimum conformal cooling channel design obtained by simulation is proposed. Three injection molds with different cooling channels for injection molding were fabricated by RTT. Reductions in the cooling time by about 89% was obtained. The variation of the results between the experiment and the simulation was investigated and analyzed.
Highlights
Sustainability as well as cost and time are key issues in the development of an injection mold with conformal cooling channels (CCCs)
It should be noted that proreference to design CCCs for injection molds fabricated by Rapid tooling technology (RTT)
Conclusions a reference to design CCCs for injection molds fabricated by RTT
Summary
Sustainability as well as cost and time are key issues in the development of an injection mold with conformal cooling channels (CCCs). An injection mold fabricated by RTT had some distinct advantages, including mold size, interior quality of the CCCs, production costs, and post-processing operations compared with injection mold fabricated by metal AM, such as selective laser sintering (SLS), selective laser melting (SLM), and diffusion bonding (DB) technologies. Results showed that the reduction in cooling time of about 92% was obtained when a hot embossing stamp had conformal cooling channels compared to the hot embossing stamp, which has conventional cooling channels. The production cost reduction of a hot embossing stamp with microstructure of approximately 72% was obtained using RTT. A high cooling efficiency injection mold with the optimum design of conformal cooling channels was fabricated by RTT. The cooling performance of the injection molds with and without cooling channels was compared experimentally
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