Heat transfer simulation for decision making in plastic injection mold design

Abstract

The solidification of a thermoplastic during the injection process directly influences the productivity and quality of the final product. This paper presents a study of the solidification performance of parts produced by a thermoplastic injection process, verifying their dimensional, visual, and production behavior according to the variation of geometry, temperature, and design of the injection mold cooling system. SolidWorks Plastics® software was used to perform the simulations. Experiments were performed with a plastic injection mold to confront and validate the simulations. Given the comparison of different cooling geometries, the simulations made it possible to obtain parts with a shorter mold cooling cycle time. Payback analysis has the primary objective of determining which cooling system is the most viable and has the highest return on invested capital. The results demonstrated a solution for engineers and designers to justify maintenance or modifications to existing injection molds through numerical simulation.