Thermal analysis based method development for novel rapid tooling applications

Abstract

The use of soft molds manufactured by additive manufacturing is gaining popularity in small-series production, thanks to the development of additive technologies and their materials. The thermal properties of soft molds, however, differ considerably from those of conventional, metal molds, and this greatly affects the conditions in the mold during manufacturing. We investigated the thermal properties and cooling conditions of epoxy acrylate-based, directly manufactured soft prototype molds. We used four different mold inserts, two with conformal cooling, one with conventional cooling and one without cooling. We found that due to the poor thermal properties of the mold material, the thermal conditions in the insert with conventional cooling and the insert without cooling were almost identical, this proves that in this case, conventional cooling cannot remove heat effectively. The use of conformal cooling, however, can reduce the cyclic heat load of mold inserts by about 70%, which increases the lifetime of the mold.