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Procedia Manufacturing 10 (2017) 48 – 59

45th SME North American Manufacturing Research Conference, NAMRC 45, LA, USA

Development of a smart plastic injection mold with conformal

cooling channels
Hong-Seok Parka, Xuan-Phuong Dangb, *
a
School of Mechanical and Automotive Engineering, University of Ulsan San 29, Mugeo 2-dong, Namgu, Ulsan, 680-749, Korea
b
Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Nha Trang University, 2 Nguyen Dinh Chieu, Nha Trang City, Khanh Hoa 650000, Vietnam

Abstract

Injection molding is a popular method that is used to make plastic product due to high productivity, efficiency and
manufacturability. This paper presents the development of a smart plastic injection mold with conformal cooling channels for
making a complex automotive part with variable thickness at some positions. To cool the positions with thicker walls, we
proposed local conformal cooling channels in which the cooling lines are in the spiral form. The mold was designed with special
inserts. Selective laser melting (SLM) 3D printing has been used to make the inserts with conformal cooling channels inside. In
the first phase of the development process, the research results show that conformal cooling channels reduce the cycle time
approximately 30% compared to conventional cooling channels. To make the mold to be smart, the temperature of the mold will
be monitored by sensor system. In addition, a quality control system is applied on this smart mold in order to ensure the quality
of molded part.
© 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license
© 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Peer-reviewunder
Peer-review under responsibility
responsibility of the
of the Scientific
organizing Committee
committee of theof45th
NAMRI/SME.
SME North American Manufacturing Research Conference

Keywords: Smart mold; injection molding; conformal cooling channels; design; simulation

1. Introduction

Injection molding has been the most popular method for making plastic product due to high efficiency and
manufacturability. The injection molding process includes three significant stages: filling and packing stage, cooling
stage, and ejection stage. Among these stages, cooling stage is very important one because it mainly affects the

* Corresponding author. Tel.: +84-090-518-5469; fax: +84-058-383-1149.

E-mail address: phuongdx@ntu.edu.vn

2351-9789 © 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Peer-review under responsibility of the organizing committee of the 45th SME North American Manufacturing Research Conference
doi:10.1016/j.promfg.2017.07.020
 Hong-Seok Park and Xuan-Phuong Dang / Procedia Manufacturing 10 (2017) 48 – 59 49

productivity and molding quality. It is well known that more than two thirds of the molding cycle is taken up by
cooling process. An appropriate design of cooling channel reduces cooling time, increases the productivity, and
minimizes undesired defects such as sink marks, differential shrinkage, thermal residual stress and warpage.
Therefore, the system of cooling channels plays a crucial role in the injection mold.
Conformal cooling channel has drawn great attention to mold designer and plastic molding researcher. Ferreira
and Mateus studied on rapid soft tooling with conformal cooling channels for plastic injection molding [1]. Wang et
al. introduced an approach to generate spiral channels for conformal cooling system [2] and concluded that the
cooling channels derived from spiral curves introduce nearly no reduction of the rate of coolant flow. In addition, the
channels are able to achieve uniform mold cooling. In literature, there are four types of conformal cooling channels:
spiral conformal cooling channels [2, 3], zigzag-type conformal cooling channels [3], scaffold type conformal
cooling channels [4], and Voronoi diagram type [5]. Each type of conformal channel is suitable for a specific case
according to the geometry of the molded part and the decision of the mold designer.
Because of the advancement in metal 3D printing technology, the application of conformal cooling channels
made by solid freeform fabrication is becoming popular recently. The conformal cooling channels system is
recognized as one of the best solutions in reducing cycle time, differential shrinkage, and warpage defects on molded
parts [6]. Although conformal cooling channels applied to injection mold is no longer new, the design and
optimization of conformal cooling channels for special practical application is still a research problem. Ahn D.G et
al. [7] studied on the manufacture of an injection mold for plastic fan with a pair of conformal cooling channels in
each blade via laser-aided direct metal tooling process to achieve both rapid and uniform cooling characteristics.
Rahim et al. [8] presented a new design of milled grooved square shape conformal cooling channels which provide
more uniformity in cooling with a larger effective cooling surface area of a plastic front panel housing. However,
how to design the best conformal cooling channel that meet the desired requirement has not been address
intensively. Jahan and El-Mounayri studied on the way of optimization of cooling channels parameters for simple
cylindrical shape using simulation and design of experiment [9]. Various researches developed the optimal design
for cooling channels that can increase the effectiveness of cooling system in molds; however, the optimal design of
the cooling channels in the mold has been restricted by the relatively simple cooling channel configurations [7, 10, 11].

Product

Long cooling Long cooling

time region time region
Real mold

Fig. 1. The product and the mold that will be improved.

In this work, we solve a practical problem in injection molding industry. An injection mold was is to make a
complicated car door module as shown in Figure 1. Due to the functionality of the molded part, the thickness of the
molded part is varied. Especially, the thickness in the two regions with rib in Figure 1 is largest. Therefore, the
cooling time is longest compared to other regions. As the result, the total cycle time is also long. In addition, the
deformation of the molded part is also larger than expected. Thus, the manufacturer wants to reduce the cycle time
50 Hong-Seok Park and Xuan-Phuong Dang / Procedia Manufacturing 10 (2017) 48 – 59

and to maintain or increase the quality of the molded part. The molding system should be smarter to ensure the
quality and productivity regardless of the variation of process conditions. The first phase of this project is improving
the quality and productivity of the molding process by applying the conformal cooling channels.

2. Development of conformal cooling channel

2.1. Physical and mathematical modelling of cooling process

In the physical sense, cooling process in injection molding is a complex heat transfer problem. The objective of
mold cooling analysis is to find the temperature distribution in the molded part and mold cavity surface during
cooling stage. Cycle-averaged temperature approach is used for mold region and transition analysis is applied to the
molded part [12-14].
The general heat conduction involving transition heat transfer problem is governed by the partial differential
equation. The cycle-averaged temperature distribution can be represented by the steady-state Laplace heat
conduction equation. When the heat balance is established, the heat flux supplied to the mold and the heat flux
removed from the mold must be in equilibrium. The heat balance is expressed by equation:

Q m  Q c  Q e 0 (1)

where Q m , Q c and Q e are the heat flux from the melt, the heat flux exchange with coolant and environment
respectively.
The heat from the molten polymer is taken away by the coolant moving through the cooling channels and by the
environment around the mold’s exterior surfaces. The equation of energy balance is simplified by neglecting the heat
lost to the surrounded environment.
Q m  Q c 0 (2)

Heat flux from the molten plastic into the coolant can be calculated as

3 s
Q m 10 [ c p (TM  TE )  im ]U x (3)
2

where c p , T M , T E , i m , U, s, x are the specific heat of plastic, melt temperature, latent heat, specific weight,
molded part’s thickness, and pitch between cooling lines, respectively.

Heat flux from the mold exchanges with coolant in the time t c amounts to [13]:

1 1
3 § 1 1 ·
Q c 10 tc ¨ 3
¨ 10 DS d k Se ¸¸ TW  TC  (4)
© st ¹

where k p , d, k st , S e , T W , T C are thermal conductivity of polymer, cooling diameter, thermal conductivity of mold
steel, shape factor, mold wall temperature, and coolant temperature, respectively.
In fact, the total time that the heat flux transfers to coolant should be cycle time including filling time t f , cooling
time t c and mold opening time t o . By comparing the analysis results obtained by the analytical method using the
formula (4) and the analysis result obtained by commercial flow simulation software, the formula (4) under-
estimates the heat flux value. On the contrary, if t c in (4) is replaced by the sum of t f , t c and t o , the formula (4) over-
estimates the heat flux from the mold exchanges with coolant. The reason is that the mold temperature at the
beginning of filling stage and mold opening is lower than other stages within a molding cycle. The under-estimation
or over-estimation is considerable when the filing time and mold opening time is not a small portion compared to
the cooling time, especially for the large part with small thickness. For this reason, the formula (4) is adjusted
 Hong-Seok Park and Xuan-Phuong Dang / Procedia Manufacturing 10 (2017) 48 – 59 51

approximately based on the investigation the mold wall temperature of rectangular flat parts by using both practical
analytical model and numerical simulation.
1
§1 1 ·§ 1 1 · (5)
Q c 10 3 ¨ t f  tc  t0 ¸ ¨ 3  ¸ (TW  TC )
©2 3 ¹ © 10 DS d k st Se ¹

The influence of the cooling channels position on heat conduction can be taken into account by applying shape
factor [15] S e
2S
Se (6)
ª 2 x sinh(2S y / x ) º
ln
«¬ Sd »¼

Heat transfer coefficient of water is calculated by [16]:

31.395 0.8
D Re (7)
d
where the Reynolds number

d
Re u (8)
Q
where d, u, and Q are diameter of cooling channel, coolant velocity, and kinetic viscosity of coolant (water),
respectively.
The cooling time of a molded part in the form of plate is calculated as [16]:

s2 ª 4 § TM  TW ·º
tc ln (9)
S 2 a «¬ S ¨© TE  TW ¸¹»¼
where
kp
a (10)
Ucp
From the formula (9), it can be seen that the cooling time only depends on the thermal properties of a plastic,
part thickness, and process conditions. It does not directly depend on cooling channels configuration. However,
cooling channels’ configuration influences the mold wall temperature TW , so it indirectly influences the cooling
time.
By combining equations from (2) to (10), one can derive the following equation:

s ­ ª y º ½
[ c p (TM  TE )  im ]U x ° 2 x sinh(2S ) ° ª 4 § T  TW ·º 1
2 1 « x » 1 s2 1 (11)
® ln « » 0.8 ¾ 2
ln « ¨ M ¸ »  t f  to
TW  TC ° 2S k st «
Sd
»
0.03139S Re ° S a ¬ S © TE  TW ¹¼ 2 3
¯ ¬ ¼ ¿
Mathematically, with preset T M , T E , T W , T C , predefined t f and t o , and others thermal properties of material,
equation (11) presents the relation between cooling time t c and the variables related to cooling channels
configuration including pitch x, depth y and diameter d. In reality, the mold wall temperature TW is established by
the cooling channels configuration and predefined parameters T M , T E , t f , t o , and thermal properties of material in
equation (11). The value of TW , in turn, results in the cooling time calculated by the formula (9).
However, due to the geometrical and dimensional constraint of the insert, the diameter and the pitch of the
cooling channel are selected as 7.0 and 13.9 mm, respectively. We used the analytical formulas to roughly determine
52 Hong-Seok Park and Xuan-Phuong Dang / Procedia Manufacturing 10 (2017) 48 – 59

Table 1. Predetermined process parameters.

Parameters Symbol Value Unit
Part thickness t 5.8 mm
o
Injection temperature TM 240 C
o
Coolant (water) temperature TC 20 C
o
Demolding temperature T E = 90°C TE 90 C
Specific heat of the melt (plastic) cp 1.925 kJ/(kg K)
Melt density U 0.98 g/cm3
Thermal conductivity of the melt km 0.188 W/(mK)

the geometry of cooling channel. This data was used to model the cooling channels for simulation. If the target time
to reach the ejection temperature is not satisfied, the distance from the cooling channels to the mold surface is fine-
tuned and additional simulations are carried out until the satisfaction is obtained.
The predetermined parameters were chosen as shown in Table 1. The distance from the center of cooling
channels to the mold surface is selected as 16 mm based on the guideline of mold design handbook. The
approximate equivalent thickness at the region we want to use conformal cooling channel is 5.8 mm. Solving the
equation (11) without constraints, we obtained multi solutions.

2.2. Design and simulation of conformal cooling channels

As previously mentioned in the introduction section, this research tries to find the solution for solving the
uneven cooling and long cycle time of the molding process of an automotive part. Due to mass production, a small
time-saving for producing a product results in a significant benefit. In addition, a proper design of cooling system
also increases the quality of the molded part. Figure 2 shows cooling system of the current mold and the temperature
distribution of the molded part. Although the cooling system is designed with a complex system of baffles and
straight drilled lines, the temperature distribution is uneven in the whole molded part. There are two regions with
high temperature (see Figure 2 (b)). Because the mold is large, the reduction of part temperature at local locations
should be done by local treatment at these hotter positions.
To resolve the problem, we proposed conformal cooling system for the current mold. There is constraint that
new cooling system must be designed based on the current mold. This means that the old mold must be reused, and
the new cooling channels are deployed on the old mold. To analyse the thermal performance of the original mold as
well as to develop the new cooling system, we used the simulation tool (Moldflow software). The steady-state cool
simulation was used to analyze both the temperature of the part and cycle averaged temperature distribution in the

Main Runners
channels Baffles Hot regions

(a) (b)

Fig. 2. Current cooling system and the temperature distribution of the molded part.
 Hong-Seok Park and Xuan-Phuong Dang / Procedia Manufacturing 10 (2017) 48 – 59 53

mold. The main technical simulation data is shown in Table 1. From the verification result in Figure 2, there are two
regions where the temperature is higher than remain regions. Therefore, we focus on these two local positions for applying
the conformal cooling channels. Conformal cooling channels have some advantages including reduction of cycle time,
improvement of aesthetic finish of the product, and reduction of warpage.
There are four types of conformal cooling channels as previously mentioned in introduction section (see Figure
3). For scaffold type, the increase in cooling circuit distance may cause more pressure drop in the coolant flow.
Besides, the pressure drop within the scaffolding passageway may not sustain a turbulent flow. Voronoi diagram
type give better even cooling lines around the mold surface but also results in highly pressure drop and uneven
velocity of coolant (different Reynold’s number in whole cooling channels). Therefore, it is difficult to control the
heat removal rate. The zigzag cooling channels have many unnecessary turnings, which slow down the flow rate of
coolant and thus weaken the function of cooling. On the contrary, spiral type gives low cooling pressure drop and
even Reynold’s number entire the cooling system (Fig. 4). In addition, we can freely control the heat removal rate
locally by control the position of cooling channels. It can be seen that the regions we are trying to cooling are in
round shape. The spiral cooling channel is smoother and easy to locate inlet and outlet compared to others types.
Therefore, it is better to used spiral cooling channels.

Zigzag type Spiral type

Scaffold type Voronoi diagram type

Fig. 3. Common types of conformal cooling channels.

Fig. 4. Comparison of circuit pressure between zigzag and spiral cooling channels.
54 Hong-Seok Park and Xuan-Phuong Dang / Procedia Manufacturing 10 (2017) 48 – 59

The selection of which type of cooling channel that is suitable for this work is important. The decision is based
on geometry of molded part. Because the mold is large and the molded part is mainly in flat shape, the main cooling
system of the old mold is retained. We have just modified the existent cooling system by adding new spiral cooling
channels as shown in Figure 5. There is also a constraint that the new cooling system is not allowed to interfere with
ejection system, temperature sensor and pressure sensor. The conformal cooling channels are located in two inserts
and their layout is shown in Figure 6. The larger diameter the cooling channel, the more cooling capacity the
channel induces. Based on the calculation results from the analytical formulas in section 2.1 and the geometry
constraint, the diameter of the cooling channels is 7 mm. The distance between the centers of cooling circuits to the
mold’s approximate surface is approximate 14 mm. The distance from the center line of the cooling channel to the
mold surface is 16 mm.

Straight cooling
channels

Baffles

Conformal cooling
channels

Fig. 5. Local spiral conformal cooing channel.

The form and shape of inserts are considerable because of the manufacturability and constraints. We made two
pockets in the existent mold and then add two insert made by 3D printing technology. The structure and assembly of
insert in the mold with local conformal cooling are shown Figure 6. The conformal cooling channels run inside the
insert spirally. To prevent coolant leakage, sealing by O-rings is required to apply between insert and the mold. In
the inserts, we designed three holes: two for assembly the sensors when we develop smart mold in the next phase of
the research project and one for the ejector pin. The inserts are fixed to the mold by interference fit and two bolts.
The material used to make the insert is the powder that has the similar chemical composition to P21 steel (AISI
standard). The thermal conductivity of P21 is 38 W/moK. The chemical composition of P21 is presented in Table 2.
To save the simulation time, just half of the molded part was considered without loss of generality. The molded
part is meshed using dual domain (fusion mesh) with tetra element; the cooling channels are meshed using beam
element. The center lines of the conformal cooling channels were modelled using CAD software and then imported
to Moldflow.
Table 2. Chemical composition of P21 steel.

Element Fe Al C Cr Mn Ni Si V

Percentage 93.5 1.2 0.2 0.25 0.3 4.1 0.3 0.2

 Hong-Seok Park and Xuan-Phuong Dang / Procedia Manufacturing 10 (2017) 48 – 59 55

Spiral cooling
Holes for Half of mold
d channel Coolant
fixture core IN

Position of
sensors

Ejector
Pin hole
Coolant
OUT
Insert 1 made by
3D printing

Holes for
sensors
assembly Insert 2

Fig. 6. The layout, structure and assembly of insert in the mold with local conformal cooling channels.

3. Research results and discussion

The simulation result shows that the conformal cooling channel gives a better temperature distribution than the
original cooling channels with system of baffles (Fig 7). The average of part temperature of the conformal cooling
channel is lower than those of conventional cooling channels. This results in a shorter cooling time. In addition, the
variation of part temperature of the conformal cooling channel is smaller than those of original cooling channels
(approximate 3oC for conformal cooling channel compared to 17oC when considering the four points (see Fig 7a and
7b for comparison)). Low temperature variation of molded part will result in smaller residual stress and warpage of
the molded part. It is clear that conformal cooling channel is better than conventional one.

(a) (b)

Fig. 7. Comparison of part temperature distribution: conventional (a) and conformal cooling channels (b)
56 Hong-Seok Park and Xuan-Phuong Dang / Procedia Manufacturing 10 (2017) 48 – 59

To make the mold to be smart, the mold has to have the ability of self-adjustment of mold temperature. Instead
of control the inlet temperature, we control the flow rate of the coolant because this method is cheaper and the
response is faster than adjusting the coolant temperature. We changed the coolant flow rate (changed the Reynold’s
number) from 5000 to 20000 with four levels (5000, 10000, 15000, and 20000). The mold temperature distributions
of these four cases are shown in Fig. 8.

Re = 20000 Re = 15000

Re = 10000 Re = 5000

Fig. 8. The temperature distributions with various Reynold’s number of cooling channel.

50.0
49.5 49.6
Average temperature (0C)

49.0 49.0
48.5
48.0
47.5 47.6
47.0
46.5 46.4
46.0
0 5000 10000 15000 20000 25000

Reynold number
Fig. 9. The change of average mold temperature with various values of Reynold’s number of coolant flow.
 Hong-Seok Park and Xuan-Phuong Dang / Procedia Manufacturing 10 (2017) 48 – 59 57

Figure 9 shows the change of average mold temperature within 8 considered points with various values of
Reynold’s number of coolant flow from 5000 to 20000 (equivalent to the flow rate from 0.75 to 3 litter/minute).
This data can be used to control the mold temperature at second phase of this project. The simulation results also
show that the time to reach the ejection temperature can be reduced approximate 31% when applied conformal
cooling channels. We obtained this result by taking the average time to reach the ejection temperature of 18 points
around the considered region (Fig. 10). The data obtained by simulation and the calculation are shown in Table 3.

Table 3. Comparison of time to reach the ejection temperature.

Point number 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18

Straight channels 21.3 20.4 36.5 28.8 21.3 35.4 30.8 31.5 58.4 75.3 71.4 22 26.2 23.1 19.6 19 41.8 21.4

Conformal channel 15.7 17.5 23.2 23.8 20.3 21.3 21.6 20.4 25.1 43.8 57.0 17.0 21.1 16.7 15.7 14.5 17.5 24.4
Average time to reach ejection Average to reach ejection temperature
Comparison results temperature of original straight cooling of conformal cooling channel = 23.14 Percentage of reduction of cooling time
channel = 33.57 (s) (s) = (33.57-23.14)/ 33.57 | 31%

After design and simulation, we decided to make the inserts. The two inserts were fabricated by selective laser
melting method on MetalSys 150 3D printer with P21 material. The printing process and the result of one insert are
shown in Figure 11a. The inserts were machined and assembled to the mold for testing their performance (Fig 11b
and 11c).

6KOGVQEQQNVJGOQNFGFRCTV
QTKIKPCNUVTCKIJV 6KOGVQEQQNOQNFGFRCTV
URKTCNEQPHQTOCN
EQQNKPIEJCPPGN EJCPPGN

Fig. 10. Comparison of time to reach the ejection temperature.

(a) (b) (c)

t–“‹GŠ–™ŒG—“ˆ›Œ

ZkG—™•›•Ž
•šŒ™› ZkG—™•›•Ž
•šŒ™›

Fig. 11. The printing process (a), the printing result of one insert (b), and final mold with inserts (c)
58 Hong-Seok Park and Xuan-Phuong Dang / Procedia Manufacturing 10 (2017) 48 – 59

(a) (b)

Fig. 12. Aesthetic finish of the product: (a) conventional cooling channels and (b) conformal cooling channels

After making the inserts, the testing process was done in order to verify the results. The molding process was
carried out on an industrial injection molding machine Toshiba IS2500DF with 2500 tons of clamping force. The
real cooling time can be reduced from 39 sec to 30 sec (equivalent to 23 %) with the new cooling channel when
using the coolant flow rate 2.25 litter/minute. There is small error between simulation and real experiment due to the
simulation error material properties. It is clear that the cycle time is reduced significantly. When using the
conformal cooling channels, the appearance (one of the quality criterion) of the molded part looks better than the
one made with conventional cooling channels.

4. Conclusion and future works

This work introduces a conformal cooling channels applied in a medium-size injection mold that makes an
automotive part. We improved an existent mold in order to reduce the cycle time and improve the quality of molded
part. In injection molding, cooling stage is very important because it account for more than two thirds of the
molding cycle. For that reason, we used spiral cooling channels made by 3D printing method. It is very expensive to
make a large mold by 3D printing method; therefore, local approach was adopted. As the results, inserts with
conformal cooling channels that is used to cool extremely hot locations in the mold is an intelligent solution.
The design of conformal cooling channels was done using the combination of analytic and CAE simulation
method. Analytic method was used to roughly identify the cooling channel parameters and the simulation method
was employed to fine-tune the design and visualize the results. We analysed the current state and performance of the
existent mold so that its drawback was drawn. The literature review method was also used to approach the state of
the art and to decide the optimal solution. The spiral cooling channel was selected as the best choice. Selective laser
melting method was used to fabricate the inserts. The real testing results show that the cooling time can be reduced
to 23%. This is a significant improvement in the first phase of this project.
By using the sensor system on the second phase of our project, the temperature and pressure at considered
(important) locations in the mold will be monitored; the intelligent molding control system will be developed and
implemented based on the thermal and mechanical behaviour happen in the mold. The productivity and the quality
of the molding process will be consistent and reach the optimum value.

Acknowledgement

This work is supported by the Ministry of Trade, Industry & Energy (MOTIE, Korea) under Industrial
Technology Innovation Program. No. 10062677. “For plastic injection molds with 50% improved cooling efficiency,
development of 3D printing equipment & mold steel powder manufacturing technology having 30 Pm grade in
diameter"
 Hong-Seok Park and Xuan-Phuong Dang / Procedia Manufacturing 10 (2017) 48 – 59 59

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