Investigations on Injection Mold Inserts with Reduced Thermal Masses using Additive Manufacturing

This work examined previously developed injection mold inserts with reduced thermal mass, with regard to lightweight construction approaches. These were optimised for oil-variothermal temperature control using simulative support. Additive manufacturing (AM), with its high degree of freedom in design, enables the implementation of individual, conformal cooling channels and can additionally support the efficiency of the variothermal process. The thermal mass of the injection mold is often a limiting factor in terms of process efficiency, which is also addressed in the analysis and optimisation considering the possibilities of additive manufacturing. A comparison of lightweight inserts with comparable variants made of solid material revealed a significant difference, with consideration of several tempering cycles. The validation of selected inserts confirmed the simulation. These investigations show that AM combined with lightweight construction approaches can support an additional increase in efficiency as well as a reduction in cycle times for the fluid-variothermal process control.