Thermal specification of 3D printed injection moulds made from PA12GB

Abstract

This paper deals with the usage of the injection mould made from the plastic material. This technology is rapidly decreasing the time, necessary to the production of the prototype. This attribute takes nowadays a key role in the industry, especially in the automotive. Technology of using injection moulds from the plastic material (produced by additive technologies) has advantages in the decreasing of the time demands and cost reduction during the production of the prototype part. Unfortunately, plastic moulds have worse surface quality, lower lifetime of the mould (measured in number of produced parts) and more difficulties of moulding process regulation with respect to the metal moulds. This paper is focused on the injection process and it is describing the thermal distribution and specification of the comparable plastic specimen during injection into the metal and plastic mould. The results are the temperature and cycle-times comparisons. The effectivity of cooling is also compared in this work. It is obvious, that the plastic mould has worse results compared to the metal mould. However, this is clearly balanced by the speed of production and price of plastic mould. The prototype of the plastic mould was made from the material PA12GB with usage of 3D printer HP MJF4200