Effect of cooling system on the polymer temperature and solidification during injection molding

Cooling system design is of great importance for plastic products industry by injection molding because it is crucial not only to reduce molding cycle time but also it significantly affects the productivity and quality of the final product. A numerical modeling for a T-mold plastic part having four cooling channels is performed. A cyclic transient cooling analysis using a finite volume approach is carried out. The objective of the mold cooling study is to determine the temperature profile along the cavity wall to improve the cooling system design. The effect of cooling channels form and the effect their location on the temperature distribution of the mold and the solidification degree of polymer are studied. To improve the productivity of the process, the cooling time should be minimized and at the same time a homogeneous cooling should be necessary for the quality of the product. The results indicate that the cooling system which leads to minimum cooling time is not achieving uniform cooling throughout the mould. (C) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.