We know that to obtain qualified injection molded products, at least two points must be kept in mind: the flow speed of the melt in the mold cavity during injection molding should be as consistent as possible, and the temperature of the mold cavity wall should be as consistent as possible.
If conformal cooling water channels can be processed on the mold, they can be more evenly distributed around the mold cavity than traditional water channels, uniformly cooling the product, thus ensuring the manufacturing of precision products.
What are conformal cooling water channels? Video ▼
1. What are conformal cooling water channels?
Conformal cooling water channels are cooling water channels with complex and irregular shapes designed according to the product appearance. Its design jumps out of the traditional design position and framework, allowing the water channel to change with the changes in the geometric shape of the mold cavity surface, which not only provides mold designers with a larger mold design space, but also simplifies the design method of cooling water channels. Going further, the heat dissipation water channel design method of the mold can also adopt irregular shape design to improve heat dissipation efficiency. This is the basic principle of conformal cooling water channels.
2. What are the difficulties in implementing conformal cooling water channels? The process of making conformal cooling water channels is limited by manufacturing technology. Generally, the cooling water channels of the mold are processed by drilling, so the shape of the water channels can only be straight lines. For a long time, the design of conformal cooling water channels could only remain in the theoretical stage.
However, since the emergence of metal 3D printing, these problems have been improved by breakthroughs!
No matter how many diameters of mold water channels, or internal angle processing that is difficult to perform on general lathes, metal 3D printing can easily achieve it. What's even better is that even if the planning method of conformal cooling water channels is complicated, metal 3D printing can accurately complete the mold and conformal cooling water channels at the same time in just one process.
Of course, not all molds require conformal cooling water channel design, because conformal cooling water channels are more expensive than traditional water channels. Generally speaking, products with complex shapes that cannot effectively dissipate heat, thin walls, and other products that are extremely sensitive to temperature and have high requirements for product quality all require molds with conformal cooling water channels.
