Investigation of Design and Manufacture in Hot Stamping Tools with Conformal Cooling Channels Based 
on Simulation and 3D-printing Technology

With the advent of 3D printing, it is now possible to produce any part or system with an approach than makes design much deeply interlaced with production. In this scenario, CAE has gained power thanks to the possibility of thinking and then manufacture ideas that go well beyond what was possible in the past. This design approach is perfectly suitable to push forward mould conformal cooling performance. In this work, a coupling of CAD, CFD and 3D printing supported by experimental tests was applied to define a design procedure for conformal cooling channels. In particular, cooling channels for a mould were engineered via CAD, then tested via CFD and, after an initial optimization procedure, the chosen design was 3D printed in specimens suitable to be mounted on a heat exchanger (HX) experimental test rig that was especially adapted for the scope. Fluids temperature, volume flow rates and heat transfer performance were measured. A feedback loop was considered to link measurements and channels redesign. Results together with design and testing procedures are reported and commented.

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Use of a Holistic Design and Manufacturing Approach to Implement Optimized Additively Manufactured Mould Inserts for the Production of Injection-Moulded Thermoplastics

Journal of Manufacturing and Materials Processing ◽

10.3390/jmmp4040100 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 4 (4) ◽

pp. 100

Author(s):

Loucas Papadakis ◽

Stelios Avraam ◽

Demetris Photiou ◽

Simona Masurtschak ◽

Juan Carlos Pereira Falcón

Keyword(s):

Cycle Time ◽

Injection Moulding ◽

Mould Insert ◽

Conformal Cooling ◽

Moulding Process ◽

Cooling Channels ◽

Injection Process ◽

Conformal Cooling Channels ◽

Injection Moulding Process ◽

Design And Manufacture

Injection moulding is one the most familiar processes for manufacturing of plastic parts by injecting molten thermoplastic polymers into a metallic mould. The cycle time of this process consists of the phases of injection, packing, cooling, and ejection of the final product. Shortening of cycle time is a key consideration to increase productivity. Therefore, in this manuscript the adoption of additively manufactured mould inserts with conformal cooling channels by means of selective laser melting (SLM) with the aim to reduce process cycles is presented. The design and manufacture of a mould insert with conformal cooling channels for producing pressure fitting thermoplastic parts is described. Numerical analysis of the injection process and simulation of shape distortions after SLM were conducted providing useful results for the design and manufacture of the mould insert. The results of the numerical analyses are compared with experimental 3D geometrical data of the additively manufactured mould insert. Temperature measurements during the real injection moulding process demonstrating promising findings. The adoption of the introduced method for the series production of injection moulded thermoplastics proves a shortening of cycle times of up to 32% and a final product shape quality improvement of up to 77% when using mould inserts with conformal cooling channels over the conventional mould inserts.

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