AM Tooling for the Mouldmaking Industry

Abstract

Additive Manufacturing (AM) has proven its value both on the supply-chain and process tooling. Concerning the mouldmaking industry, many studies have been conducted, providing useful information about this manufacturing approach on the mould insert’s effectiveness on the mould’s cooling stage. Therefore, it is important to assess the feasibility of the use of AM in other mould components where temperature also plays an important role on cycle time. Furthermore, the freeform capacity of the manufacturing process also enables innovative and/or optimized solutions for mould components, providing a significant economic impact, resulting both from mould operation (reduced cycle time) and component’s production (conventional manufacturing vs. AM). This work aims also to evaluate the concept of mass customization by developing a common geometry for a hot-runner nozzle bushing, enabling its automatic customization depending on the hot-runner nozzle manufacturer and the cooling requirements of the nozzle. Additionally, generative design is also used to optimize the bushing’s volume, reducing build time and costs, providing a more effective cooling of the hot-runners nozzle tip.