Abstract
Uniformity of the temperature in the mold plate is of paramount important since it will affect the dimensional stability of the part produced. To provide uniform temperature to the metal plate, many factors need to be considered such as choice of heating technology, uniformity of a heat source, a type of control, etc. This paper aims to study the temperature uniformity of metal plate using closed-loop oscillating heat pipe (CLOHP) as a heat transfer device. The metal plates which were P-20 with the size of 306 x 130 mm2 were used. Metal plate was gouged to a depth of 3 mm for installing the CLOHP. Distances from the heating device to the metal plate surface were 5 and 10 mm. The surface temperatures of the metal plate were controlled at 80, 90, 100, 110, 120, and 130°C. Sixteen pointa of temperature were recorded. The results were then compared to those using the heat source as the cartridge heater arranged in the similar way with the same heating capacity. Once the system entered the steady state, it was found that the temperature distribution of metal plate using the CLOHP has a deviation in the range of ± 1.00°C and ± 0.94°C at the CLOHP depth of 5 mm. and 10 mm., respectively. While those of using cartridge heater deviated in the range of ± 1.35°C and ± 1.16°C. Compare to the recommended value from the ASTM Standard that the mold surface temperature need to be in the range of ± 2.0°C, the CLOHP shows the very promising results.
Highlights
Heating of the cavity steel mold plates during the molding process, especially in the processing of plastic parts, are important to part quality and production time
This paper investigates the temperature uniformity of the metal plate when oscillation heat pipe is applied as a heat transfer device
Once the heater was on, the surface temperature of the metal plate equipped with closed-loop oscillating heat pipe (CLOHP) heat source was recorded until it reached the set point and was stabilized, the data of each location, was recorded for duration of 60 minutes
Summary
Heating of the cavity steel mold plates during the molding process, especially in the processing of plastic parts, are important to part quality and production time. Heating of the cavity mold plates, especially a bit higher than the glass transition temperature, ensures that the parts could be optimally filled with good aesthetic surface quality. The problems such as weld line, jetting, fiber mark, and all other flow line traces can be eliminated, as such secondary operations i.e., sanding, coating, or coloring, are no longer needed. Athanasopoulos, N, et al [3], reported that by using carbon fiber as heating element in the mold cavity, the minimum temperature tolerance achieved was ± 2.6 oC
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