Rapid Development of an Injection Mold with High Cooling Performance Using Molding Simulation and Rapid Tooling Technology
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Department of Mechanical Engineering, Ming Chi University of Technology, No. 84, Gungjuan Road, New Taipei City 243303, Taiwan
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Research Center for Intelligent Medical Devices, Ming Chi University of Technology, No. 84, Gungjuan Road, New Taipei City 243303, Taiwan
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Academic Editor: Hans Nørgaard Hansen
Micromachines 2021, 12(3), 311; https://doi.org/10.3390/mi12030311
Received: 26 January 2021
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Revised: 6 March 2021
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Accepted: 8 March 2021
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Published: 16 March 2021
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Soft Tooling — Polymer Additive Manufacturing Applied to Injection Moulding Process Chains)
Rapid tooling technology (RTT) provides an alternative approach to quickly provide wax injection molds for the required products since it can reduce the time to market compared with conventional machining approaches. Removing conformal cooling channels (CCCs) is the key technology for manufacturing injection mold fabricated by rapid tooling technology. In this study, three different kinds of materials were used to fabricate CCCs embedded in the injection mold. This work explores a technology for rapid development of injection mold with high cooling performance. It was found that wax is the most suitable material for making CCCs. An innovative method for fabricating a large intermediary mold with both high load and supporting capacities for manufacturing a large rapid tooling using polyurethane foam was demonstrated. A trend equation for predicting the usage amount of polyurethane foam was proposed. The production cost savings of about 50% can be obtained. An optimum conformal cooling channel design obtained by simulation is proposed. Three injection molds with different cooling channels for injection molding were fabricated by RTT. Reductions in the cooling time by about 89% was obtained. The variation of the results between the experiment and the simulation was investigated and analyzed.
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MDPI and ACS Style
Kuo, C.-C.; Nguyen, T.-D.; Zhu, Y.-J.; Lin, S.-X. Rapid Development of an Injection Mold with High Cooling Performance Using Molding Simulation and Rapid Tooling Technology. Micromachines 2021, 12, 311. https://doi.org/10.3390/mi12030311
AMA Style
Kuo C-C, Nguyen T-D, Zhu Y-J, Lin S-X. Rapid Development of an Injection Mold with High Cooling Performance Using Molding Simulation and Rapid Tooling Technology. Micromachines. 2021; 12(3):311. https://doi.org/10.3390/mi12030311
Chicago/Turabian StyleKuo, Chil-Chyuan, Trong-Duc Nguyen, Yi-Jun Zhu, and Shi-Xun Lin. 2021. "Rapid Development of an Injection Mold with High Cooling Performance Using Molding Simulation and Rapid Tooling Technology" Micromachines 12, no. 3: 311. https://doi.org/10.3390/mi12030311
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