A Methodology for the Design of Effective Cooling System in Injection Moulding

Abstract

In thermoplastic injection moulding, part quality and cycle time depend strongly on the cooling stage. Numerous strategies have been investigated in order to determine the cooling conditions which minimize undesired defects such as warpage and differential shrinkage. In this paper we propose a methodology for the optimal design of the cooling system. Based on geometrical analysis, the cooling line is defined by using conformal cooling concept. It defines the locations of the cooling channels. We only focus on the distribution and intensity of the fluid temperature along the cooling line which is here fixed. We formulate the determination of this temperature distribution, as the minimization of an objective function composed of two terms. It is shown how this two antagonist terms have to be weighted to make the best compromise. The expected result is an improvement of the part quality in terms of shrinkage and warpage.