Design of Conformal Cooling Channel of Washing Machine Mixer Mold Based On 3D Printing and Analysis of the Product Deformation

Polymers ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (8) ◽  
pp. 1224
Author(s):  
Chil-Chyuan Kuo ◽  
Wei-Hua Chen

Silicone rubber mold (SRM) is capable of reducing the cost and time in a new product development phase and has many applications for the pilot runs. Unfortunately, the SRM after injection molding has a poor cooling efficiency due to its low thermal conductivity. To improve the cooling efficiency, the thermal conductivity of the SRM was improved by adding fillers into the SRM. An optimal recipe for fabricating a high cooling efficiency low-pressure injection mold with conformal cooling channel fabricated by fused deposition modeling technology was proposed and implemented. This study proposes a recipe combining 52.6 wt.% aluminum powder, 5.3 wt.% graphite powder, and 42.1 wt.% liquid silicon rubber can be used to make SRM with excellent cooling efficiency. The price–performance ratio of this SRM made by the proposed recipe is around 55. The thermal conductivity of the SRM made by the proposed recipe can be increased by up to 77.6% compared with convention SRM. In addition, the actual cooling time of the injection molded product can be shortened up to 69.1% compared with the conventional SRM. The actual cooling time obtained by the experiment is in good agreement with the simulation results with the relative error rate about 20%.


Author(s):  
Shaohua Han ◽  
Zhongzhong Zhang ◽  
Pengxiang Ruan ◽  
Shiwen Cheng ◽  
Dingqi Xue

Additive manufacturing has been proven to be a promising technology for fabricating high-performance dies, molds, and conformal cooling channels. As one of the manufacturing methods, wire and arc additive manufacturing displays unique advantages of low cost and high deposition rate that are better than other high energy beam-based ones. This paper presents a preliminary study of fabricating integrated cooling channels by CMT-based wire and arc additive manufacturing process. The deposition strategies for fabricating circular cross-sectional cooling channels both in conformal and straight-line patterns have been investigated. It included optimizing the welding torch angle, fabricating the enclosed semicircle structure and predicting the collision between the torch and constructed part. The cooling effect test was also conducted on both the conformal cooling channel and straight-line cooling channel. The results affirmed a higher cooling efficiency and better uniform cooling effect of the conformal cooling channel than straight-line cooling channel.


2007 ◽  
Vol 561-565 ◽  
pp. 1999-2002 ◽  
Author(s):  
Abul B.M. Saifullah ◽  
Syed H. Masood

Cooling channel design is important in mould designs to achieve shorter cycles, dimensional stability and reduced part stresses. Traditionally, cooling channels have been machined into mould components to avoid interference with the ejection system, coring, cavity and other mould details. Over the years straight drilled cooling channels have given away, in part, to conformal cooling technique often using free form fabrication techniques. This paper presents a study of optimised mould design with conformal cooling channel using finite element analysis. Various configurations of conformal cooling channels have been developed. The part cooling time using the conformal cooling channels and the straight cooling channels in the mould are computed using the Pro/Mechanica Thermal FEA software. Results are presented based on temperature distribution and cooling time using steady state and transient analysis conditions. The results show a reduction in cycle time for the plastic part with conformal cooling channel design.


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