Cycle time reduction in injection moulding with conformal cooling channels

Cooling channel design in injection moulding is very important as it greatly affects the cycle time. Traditionally, cooling channels have been machined into mould components with gun-barrel drilling, with that only straight channels were possible to manufacture. An advanced method of cooling system that ‘conforms’ to the shape of the part in the core, cavity and strippers can be made possible with free form fabrication or 3D printing. This paper presents a study on optimized mould design of conformal cooling channel for a plastic part. Core and cavities have been designed using Pro/Molddesign and circular configurations of conformal cooling channels have been developed with Pro-Engineer software. The part cooling time has been optimized by using these conformal cooling channels and compared with straight channels in the mould using ANSYS thermal simulation software. Results are presented based on temperature distribution and cooling time using transient thermal analysis conditions. The results provide a reduction in cycle time for the plastic part, which will lead increase of production volume.