Increase productivity of injection molding for an automotive duct that required a long tooling cycle to avoid warpage.
Metal 3D printed conformal cooling lines reduced temperature variation by 86% compared to conventional straight line channels.
Sub-Optimal Cooling Lines Lead to High-Temperature Variations
Conformally-cooled molds take advantage of modern technology to solve an age-old problem: Many injection-molded parts have curved surfaces, yet the drills used to create cooling channels in the inserts only produce straight lines. The emergence of metal 3D printing, alongside robust design software is changing the way cooling channels are formed within an insert, enabling far more consistent cooling across a mold, with resultant faster production times, reduced warpage in the parts and greater yields.
Software design showing internal water flows in conformal channels (Photo credit: Oqton)
Updating the Mold with Conformal Cooling Channels
According to B&J Specialty information technology and 3D printing manager Jarod Rauch, the automotive duct appeared to be a strong candidate for a modified conformal cooling design.
Setting Expectations with Accurate Simulation
Comparative simulations between the original mold design and the new design with conformal cooling lines showed a dramatic improvement in temperature distribution, reducing temperature variation by 86 percent.
3D Printing Mold Inserts with Conformal Cooling Lines
B&J engineers used Oqton’s 3DXpert software and a ProX DMP 300 metal 3D printer by 3D Systems to produce the mold inserts in maraging steel.
Substantial Gains in Productivity
Benchmark testing demonstrated that the more even cooling provided by the conformal lines made it possible to reduce cycle times and increase productivity throughput by 30 percent.
B&J Specialty's Jarod Rauch demonstrates prowess with designing and metal 3D printing injection molding inserts with conformal cooling channels
