Thermal simulations and measurements for rapid tool inserts in injection molding applications

The research based on a special developed injection mold for novel rapid prototyping based mold inserts with cooling systems. A method has been introduced to determine the most important thermal parameters for injection molding simulations using rapid tools. Those parameters, which can be measured such as the specific heat and thermal conductivity of the mold materials, are directly implemented into the software. The heat transfer coefficient between the polymer melt and the rapid tool insert surface cannot be measured in a reasonable way, thus simulation software was used to determine that based on indirect calculation derived from real measurements. In the paper, the method was proved with Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM) and Polyjet mold inserts.