Laminated Injection Mould with Conformal Cooling Channels: Optimization, Fabrication and Testing

Abstract

Conformal cooling channels follow the cavity shape and can provide a better cooling performance in injection moulds. Laminated tooling is one of the techniques for manufacturing injection moulds with conformal cooling systems. A laminated tool is made by stacking metal sheets of varying thicknesses from which pre–calculated profiles have been cut. The stacked sheets result in a jagged die surface that has to be finished before use. Although larger number of small thickness sheets result in small irregularities that can be finished easily, it increases the cost of profile cutting process. Therefore, one of the issues in laminated tooling is determination of sheet thicknesses so that the laminated die can be made optimally. In this paper, an optimization method is presented to find the best size of the various laminas based on CAD model surface geometry such that the surface jaggedness and the number of slice is reduced at the same time. The final mould is fabricated based on suggested optimization method. It is then tested to show the improvement in cooling performance as compared to the same die with conventional cooling channels.