Research On The Optimization Design Of Injection Mould For Cooling Channel And SLM Manufacturing Of Inserts

Designing efficient cooling system can shorten the moulding cycle and improve production efficiency in the injection moulding process because cooling time accounts for more than half of the moulding cycle.The production efficiency of the injection mould with conformal cooling water channel is much higher than that of the traditional cooling water channel mould,and the quality of the injection products is also greatly improved.But the design of conformal cooling water channel is much more complicated than that of the traditional cooling water channel.The optimization design of plastic mould with CAE analysis software can simulate and predict the problems in production before production,optimize the mould structure and production process.Therefore,it is necessary to optimize the design of the cooling water channel mould with CAE.Selective Laser Melting(SLM)acts directly on metal powder by using high-energy laser beam laser to form high-density metal parts,which is also called 3D printing technology.Its feature is that there are few restrictions on the shape of the parts.It can manufacture complex structures that can not be manufactured by conventional processing.Because the SLM technology can be shaped freely,it is possible to manufacture the injection mould with the cooling.In addition,many of the injection parts are made of reinforced plates and screw-hole cylinders,whose moulds must be designed into long,narrow slots and deep holes.These structures require edm in traditional die manufacturing methods.A set of moulds requires a large number of graphite or copper electrodes.Copper is expensive,graphite is brittle and easy to break,and the processing and electropunching of the electrodes take time and energy.By contrast,These problems process can be avoided because SLM technology can shape mould parts directly.Therefore,this paper takes digital camera front shell as an example,the optimization design of conformal water channel injection mould and the SLM manufacturing of inserts are studied.Firstly,the mould was designed and analyze by UG and Moldflow software,and the injection moulding process parameters were optimized and the best gate location was selected.Then,the Materialise 3-matic software was used to create the passageway cooling.Because there is no definite design instruction for the cooling channel at present,the design method,structure form and forming method must be studied.Finally,the mould insert was trial-producedby SLM technology,and the precision of the mould insert was analyzed.The study has two characteristics: One is the cooling water pipe structure is designed according to experience and the uniformity of heat dissipation is difficult to be guaranteed in the existing studies of the cooling channel with conformal cooling.However,Materialise3-matic software is used in this design.The cooling pipe str ucture is exactly the same as the plastic parts,and the heat dissipation is more uniform.The second is to use SLM technology to mould insert rather than overall mould,making it possible to apply the current "expensive" SLM moulding technology to mould manufacturing.The research in this paper is of certain reference significance for SLM technology to realize complex structure moulding and injection mould design and manufacture of cooling channel under existing conditions.