Using Additive Manufacturing to Produce Injection Moulds Suitable for Short Series Production

Whlean, Conor; Sheahan, Con

doi:10.1016/j.promfg.2020.01.008

Cited by 17 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 4 publications

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“…Mechanical properties and tensile and compression limits of some Formlabs SLA resins have been also experimentally verified for mold insert fabrication [ 12 ], showing that the limits can be much lower than those declared by manufacturers in material datasheets. In addition, regarding material performance, the authors in [ 13 ] demonstrated that the design rules of mold inserts and mold assembly setup [ 14 ] are very important to success, avoiding defects and allowing for a high number of shots before mold failure.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Micro Injection Molding of Thin Cavities Using Stereolithography for Mold Fabrication

et al. 2021

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At the present time, there is a growing interest in additive manufacturing (AM) technologies and their integration into current process chains. In particular, the implementation of AM for tool production in micro injection molding (µ-IM), a well-established process, could introduce many advantages. First of all, AM could avoid the need for the time-consuming and expensive fabrication of molds for small series of customized products. In this work, the feasibility, quality, and reliability of an AM/µ-IM process chain were evaluated by designing and fabricating mold inserts for µ-IM by stereolithography (SLA) technology; the mold inserts were characterized and tested experimentally. The selected geometry is composed of four thin cavities: This particular feature represents an actual challenge for both the SLA and µ-IM perspective due to the large surface-to-volume ratio of the cavity. Two different materials were used for the mold fabrication, showing sharply different performance in terms of endurance limit and cavity degradation. The obtained results confirm that the µ-IM process, exploiting an SLA fabricated mold insert, is feasible but requires great accuracy in material choice, mold design, fabrication, and assembly.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Micro Injection Molding of Thin Cavities Using Stereolithography for Mold Fabrication

et al. 2021

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“…Possible properties that can be positively changed are heat resistance, tensile strength, flexural strength and modulus of elasticity. Thermal postprocessing on a polymer mold insert results in measurable expansion, which is why this should be considered during the design of the CAD model and adjusted accordingly [25].…”

Section: Post-processingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Review and Development of Design Guidelines for Additive Tooling of Injection Molds Using PolyJet Modelling

Junk,

Schrock,

Schmieder

2023

Industrializing Additive Manufacturing

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Due to globalization and the resulting increase in competition on the market, products must be produced more and more cheaply, especially in series production, because buyers expect new variants or even completely new products in ever shorter cycles. Injection molding is the most important production process for manufacturing plastic components in large quantities. However, the conventional production of a mold is extremely time-consuming and costly, which creates a contradiction to the fast pace of the market. Additive tooling is an area of application of additive manufacturing, which in the field of injection molding is preferably used for the prototype production of mold inserts. This allows injection molding tools to be produced faster and more cheaply than through the subtractive manufacturing of metal tools. Material Jetting processes using polymers (MJT-UV/P), also called Polyjet Modeling (PJM), have a great potential for use in additive tooling. Due to the poorer mechanical and thermal properties compared to conventional mold insert materials, e.g. steel or aluminum, the previously used design principles cannot be applied. Accordingly, new design guidelines are necessary, which are developed in this paper. The necessary information is obtained with the help of a systematic literature research. The design guidelines are mapped in a uniform design guide, which is structured according to the design process of injection molds. The guidelines do not only refer to the constructive design of the injection mold or the polymer mold insert, but to the entire design process and describe the four phases of planning, conception, development and realization. Particular attention is paid to the special geometric designs of a polymer mold insert and the thermomechanical properties of the mold insert materials. As a result, design guidelines are available that are adapted to the special requirements of additive tooling of molds inserts made of plastics for injection molding.

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“…As additive manufacturing (AM) is particularly suited to low-volume production and complex geometries, AM processes are increasingly becoming viable alternatives to conventional manufacturing. At the current stage of development, various AM processes have proven to be effective and efficient alternatives to toolmaking in the application of additive tooling (AT) (Lozano et al, 2022; The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at: https://www.emerald.com/insight/1355-2546.htm Hussin et al, 2021;Kampker et al, 2020;Whlean and Sheahan, 2019;Mischkot et al, 2017;Noble et al, 2014). The two main benefits of AT are time and cost savings.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evaluation of a method for the additive tooling of injection mould inserts

Schrock,

Junk,

Albers

2023

RPJ

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Purpose This study aims to investigate a systematic approach to the production and use of additively manufactured injection mould inserts in product development (PD) processes. For this purpose, an evaluation of the additive tooling design method (ATDM) is performed. Design/methodology/approach The evaluation of the ATDM is conducted within student workshops, where students develop products and validate them using AT-prototypes. The evaluation process includes the analysis of work results as well as the use of questionnaires and participant observation. Findings This study shows that the ATDM can be successfully used to assist in producing and using AT mould inserts to produce valid AT prototypes. As a reference for the implementation of AT in industrial PD, extracts from the work of the student project groups and suitable process parameters for prototype production are presented. Originality/value This paper presents the application and evaluation of a method to support AT in PD that has not yet been scientifically evaluated.

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Using Additive Manufacturing to Produce Injection Moulds Suitable for Short Series Production

Cited by 17 publications

References 4 publications

Micro Injection Molding of Thin Cavities Using Stereolithography for Mold Fabrication

Micro Injection Molding of Thin Cavities Using Stereolithography for Mold Fabrication

Review and Development of Design Guidelines for Additive Tooling of Injection Molds Using PolyJet Modelling

Evaluation of a method for the additive tooling of injection mould inserts

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