Development of a Smart Plastic Injection Mold with Conformal Cooling Channels

Injection molding is a popular method that is used to make plastic product due to high productivity, efficiency and manufacturability. This paper presents the development of a smart plastic injection mold with conformal cooling channels for making a complex automotive part with variable thickness at some positions. To cool the positions with thicker walls, we proposed local conformal cooling channels in which the cooling lines are in the spiral form. The mold was designed with special inserts. Selective laser melting (SLM) 3D printing has been used to make the inserts with conformal cooling channels inside. In the first phase of the development process, the research results show that conformal cooling channels reduce the cycle time approximately 30% compared to conventional cooling channels. To make the mold to be smart, the temperature of the mold will be monitored by sensor system. In addition, a quality control system is applied on this smart mold in order to ensure the quality of molded part.