Production and experimental investigation of conformal cooling channel with layered object manufacturing method in plastic injection molds

In injection molds, the cooling system has a significant role in production cost and product quality. In this study, conformal cooling channels are used for a more efficient cooling system in plastic injection molds. A systematic design method has been developed to create conformal cooling channels. A complicated geometry plastic part with curved surfaces has been chosen and cooling channels are designed which follow the surface of the parts conformably. Before the experimental study, gate location, filling, packing, warpage and cooling analyzes were performed using Moldflow software. According to the obtained results of the analysis, the mold was designed. The plastic injection mold with spiral conformal channels is modeled using computer-aided design software to manufacture. The vacuum brazing method is used for the production of conformal cooling channels. Solid models of mold cores are divided into layers and production of plates is planned. The plates, which are polished by grinding the joining surfaces, are machined with a CNC milling machine to create gaps to form the cooling channel. The prepared plates were combined with the vacuum brazing method. The mold blocks, which are obtained by joining the plates and which have conformal cooling channels, were re-machined on the CNC milling machine and mold cavities are created. Mold cores with straight cooling channels were also produced to compare experimentally. The produced plastic injection mold was mounted on the plastic injection machine and filling tests were made. In the experiments, temperature, cooling time and warpage on the plastic parts were examined. As a result of the experiments, with the use of conformal cooling channels, the cooling time was reduced by 22% while the warpage decreased by 50%. With this study, the plastic injection mold with conformal cooling channels was produced using a low-cost method and an increase in production speed and product quality was achieved.