Energy reduction by effective mould cooling and reducing cycle time
Thursday, 30 May 2019
The Solution
Tool designers optimise the design of cooling channels within the mould to reduce cycle time. The complexity of these cooling circuits, however, is generally counterproductive to fast tool change, with multiple circuits being individually temperature controlled. To speed up the tool change process, many moulders’ will use single point connections with multiple looped circuits. This provides a low level of thermal control and results in inefficient cooling of the mould, thereby increasing the cycle time.
Staubli’s multi-connection plates provide individual circuit connections, allowing accurate control of flow and temperature to each specific circuit. This optimises the cycle time and reduces the energy required during production for each part, whilst also speeding up the mould change process..jpg)
Pete Adey
Technical Manager, Staubli (UK) Ltd
Volume 2014, Article ID 968484, 8 pages
Muhammad Khan,1 S. Kamran Afaq,1 Nizar Ullah Khan,2 and Saboor Ahmad3
Received 18 January 2014; Accepted 2 March 2014; Published 25 March 2014
Academic Editors: A. Z. Sahin and X. Yang
Copyright © 2014 Muhammad Khan et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Abstract: Cycle time of a part in the injection moulding process is very important as the rate of production and the quality of the parts produced depend on it, whereas the cycle time of a part can be reduced by reducing the cooling time which can only be achieved by the uniform temperature distribution in the moulded part which helps in quick dissipation of heat. Conformal cooling channel design is the solution to the problem which basically “conforms” to the shape of cavity in the moulds. This paper describes the analytical study of cooling analysis of different types of cooling channel designs. The best cooling channel design is also selected on the basis of minimum time to reach ejection temperature, uniform temperature distribution, and minimum warpage of part. “Creo Elements/Pro 5.0” is used to model the case study, its moulds, and the cooling circuit whereas analytical study is done using “Autodesk Moldflow Advisor 2013 (AMFA).”
.png)
