Hindawi Publishing Corporation

ISRN Mechanical Engineering

Volume 2014, Article ID 968484, 8 pages
http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2014/968484

Research Article
Cycle Time Reduction in Injection Molding Process by Selection
of Robust Cooling Channel Design

Muhammad Khan,1 S. Kamran Afaq,1 Nizar Ullah Khan,2 and Saboor Ahmad3
1
Mechanical Engineering Department, HITEC University, Taxila, Pakistan
2
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Oakland University, Rochester, USA
3
SMME, NUST, Islamabad, Pakistan

Correspondence should be addressed to Muhammad Khan; [email protected]

Received 18 January 2014; Accepted 2 March 2014; Published 25 March 2014

Academic Editors: A. Z. Sahin and X. Yang

Copyright © 2014 Muhammad Khan et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution
License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly
cited.

Cycle time of a part in injection molding process is very important as the rate of production and the quality of the parts produced
depend on it, whereas the cycle time of a part can be reduced by reducing the cooling time which can only be achieved by the
uniform temperature distribution in the molded part which helps in quick dissipation of heat. Conformal cooling channel design
is the solution to the problem which basically “conforms” to the shape of cavity in the molds. This paper describes the analytical
study of cooling analysis of different types of cooling channel designs. The best cooling channel design is also selected on the
basis of minimum time to reach ejection temperature, uniform temperature distribution, and minimum warpage of part. “Creo
Elements/Pro 5.0” is used to model the case study, its molds, and the cooling circuit whereas analytical study is done using “Autodesk
Moldflow Advisor 2013 (AMFA).”

1. Introduction In the cooling phase, heat transfers between the molten

material inside the cavity and the cooling fluid (generally
Injection molding is a major part of the plastic industry and is water) flowing through the cooling channels inside the mold,
a huge business worldwide, consuming approximately 32 wt% until ejection temperature is achieved and part is stable
of all plastic. It is in the second place to extrusion, which enough for demolding. Thus this rate of heat exchange is
consumes approximately 36 wt% [1]. The injection molding very important and directly related to the time taken by
process consists of melting of polymer and then its injection the cooling phase. So it is important to understand and
into the cavity in the molds. This molten material is ejected optimize the cooling channel design to optimize the rate
from the molds after reaching the cooling temperature. of heat transfer in an injection molding process. Proper
Thus, the main phases of the injection molding process are design of the cooling channel is required for a faster cooling
injection, packing, cooling, and part ejection. Among these, phase. Historically, the cooling channels have been created
part cooling takes up 50 to 80 percent of the cycle time [2]. by drilling several straight holes (cooling channels) inside
The amount of time in the injection and packing phases is the mold core and cavity. Such type of cooling channels is
low and cannot be reduced much further. However, because called as “Conventional Cooling Channels (CCC).” However
cooling time can be more than two-thirds of the molding the cooling process in CCC is too long because of nonuniform
cycle, a cooling time reduction will considerably increase the cooling of part. If the part’s temperature can be reduced
production rate as well as reduce costs [3]. But decreasing more quickly and uniformly, it will shorten the cooling
cooling time can result in excessive shrinkage and warpage in time without compromising on part quality because nearly
parts [4]. So there is a need of a cooling technique to reduce uniform temperatures can be held in part by using conformal
the cycle time without compromising on part quality. cooling [4]. In conformal cooling channel, the shape of
2 ISRN Mechanical Engineering

(a) (b)

Figure 1: (a) Straight drilled cooling channel. (b) Conformal cooling channel.

that, they investigated a geometric modeling algorithm to

design the cooling circuit approaching the conformal cooling.
Simulations have been taken to verify the advantage of the
cooling circuit generated by their algorithm [7]. It is verified
by numerical and experimental investigation that three-
dimensional thickness control method (3DTCM) is helpful to
manage the warpage of the injected parts. With special gate
design, material selection, and various operation conditions,
warpage of injected parts can be managed significantly [8].
In this study the time to reach ejection temperature, time
to reach part ejection temperature (freezing time), shrinkage,
and temperature variance have been studied for four different
Figure 2: CAD model of food container. cooling channels.

D 2. Part Design and Cooling Channel Design

d In this case study, a plastic food container has been modeled
P using Creo Elements/Pro 5.0 (Figure 2). Part is 145 mm in
length, 94 mm in width, 1.5 mm in thickness, and 50 mm in
height. The sat (Standard ASCI Text) model file of the plastic
part has been imported to Autodesk Mold Flow Advisor 2013
Recommended depth and pitch (AMFA) to perform mold flow analysis.
d = diameter of water line = 7/16 to 9/16 inch The appropriate location for cooling channels is inside the
D = depth of water line = d to 2d mold cavity or core with proper distance apart from the mold
P = pitch = 3d to 5d surface and between the successive cooling channels. Figure 3
Figure 3: Layout of cooling channels in injection mold. shows that the distance (𝐷), from cavity surface to the center
of cooling channel, should be one to two times of cooling
channel diameter (𝑑). The pitch of cooling channels should lie
between 3𝑑 to 5𝑑 whereas a typical channel’s diameter ranges
the cooling channel “conforms” to the shape of the cavity in from 10 to 14 mm [9]. The design rule is that “𝐷” should be
the molds (Figure 1). 1 × 𝑑 for Steel, 1.5 × 𝑑 for Beryllium, and 2 × 𝑑 for Aluminum
Research in conformal cooling system has mainly focused [1].
on simulation studies and testing of prototype conformal As the proposed mold material is Tool Steel 𝑃-20, the
cooling molds using various techniques [5]. Konsulova- selected cooling channel diameter is 10 mm. Layouts of cool-
Bakalova has used thermal simulation software, SolidWorks ing channel analyzed in this study are the conventional cool-
Simulation, and compared conformal cooling channels with ing channel design, conformal cooling channels connected
circular and elliptical cross-sections. He has concluded that in series, conformal cooling channels connected in parallel,
the cooling time of part has been optimized by using and conformal cooling channels with additive cooling lines
conformal cooling channels and results translate a reduc- (Figure 4).
tion in production cycle time and increase in the quality In conventional cooling channel (CCC) straight
of the parts [6]. Researchers have designed an automatic drilled cooling lines are used (Figure 4(a)). In the second
method for designing conformal cooling circuit. First they design, series conformal cooling channels (SCC), cooling
formulated a relationship between the conformal cooling channels conform to the shape of the part and they are
and the geometrical shape of cooling circuit. Based on connected in series with each other (Figure 4(b)) whereas, in
ISRN Mechanical Engineering 3

(a) (b)

(c) (d)

Figure 4: (a) Conventional cooling channel design. (b) Series conformal cooling design. (c) Parallel conformal cooling channel. (d)
Conformal cooling channel with additive cooling lines.

Gating suitability
Best Melt temperature = 225.0∘ C
= 1.000 Purell HM671T: Basell polyolefins

40.00 Not feasible

Mold temperature (∘ C)

38.75

37.50 Feasible

36.25

35.00 Preferred
0.0250 1.039 2.052 3.066 4.080
Worst Injection time (s)

Figure 6: Molding windows.

Scale (100 mm)

Figure 5: Best gate location. Confidence of fill

High (100.0%)
the third design, parallel conformal cooling channels (PCC),
the same conformal cooling channels are connected in
parallel (Figure 4(c)). In the last channel design, conformal Medium (0.00%)
cooling channel with additive cooling lines (CCAL), along
with conformal cooling lines, two straight cooling channels
are also placed on both sides of the part (Figure 4(d)). Low (0.00%)
X
3. Mold Flow Analysis Y Z

Scale (100 mm)

The mold flow analysis is performed after assigning
Polypropylene (PP) Purell HM671T material to the plastic Figure 7: Confidence of fill.
4 ISRN Mechanical Engineering

15.63 Time to reach ejection temperature

Time to reach ejection temperature
= 14.63 s 14.63
= 15.63 s

12.26
11.52

(s)
8.896

(s)
8.402

5.530 5.286

2.165 2.170
(a) (b)

Figure 8: Time to reach ejection temperature with (a) conventional cooling channel and (b) series conformal cooling channels.

Time to reach ejection temperature 14.13

= 14.13 s

Time to reach ejection temperature 14.13

11.14 = 14.13 s

11.14
(s)

8.152

(s)
8.153

5.162 5.162

Z
2.171 Y X 2.172

(a) (b)

Figure 9: Time to reach ejection temperature with (a) parallel conformal cooling channels and (b) conformal cooling channels with additive
lines.

Table 1: Thermal and mechanical properties. whereas 𝑦-axis shows melt temperature. The molding win-
dows is divided into three areas, which are green (preferred),
Number Property Value
yellow (feasible), and red (not feasible). Figure 6 shows that
1 Density (g/cm3 ) 0.9 our selected zone is in the preferred region (green area); thus
2 Melt temperature (∘ C) 168 it will lead to a high part quality. At the optimum point in
3 Thermal conductivity (10−4 cal/sec cm ∘ C) 2.8 the molding window, the melt temperature is 225∘ C and mold
4 Heat capacity (cal/g ∘ C) 0.9 temperature is 38.89∘ C whereas the injection time is 0.6912
seconds.
Using these optimal conditions Fill + Pack + Warp +
part. The part weight for this material is 43.17 grams, Cooling quality analysis is performed. Dual domain meshing
excluding sprue and gating system. The thermal and is used and the number of nodes and triangles in the mesh is
mechanical properties of PP are shown in Table 1 [1]. 9225 and 18446, respectively. Figure 7 shows the “confidence
On AMFA first of all “gate location analysis” is performed of fill” for the case study and it is clear that part has high
and results show that the best location is on the base of the (100%) confidence of fill at the optimum point of molding
part (Figure 5). windows.
In the second step “molding windows” analysis is per- Then at the end “cool” analysis is performed for each
formed to evaluate the optimum material conditions required cooling channel design. The cooling fluid is pure water with
for part production. The purpose of molding windows is to inlet temperature 25∘ C and at 4 lit/min volume flow rate.
improve manufacturability of the part. Molding windows of The coolant Reynolds number is 9401.5 which indicates that
the case study for Polypropylene Purell HM671T material is flow of water is fully turbulent because the flow in a round
shown in Figure 6. The injection time is shown on 𝑥-axis pipe is turbulent if the Reynolds number is greater than
ISRN Mechanical Engineering 5

Time to reach ejection temperature, part 5.536

= 5.536 s Time to reach ejection temperature, part 5.205
= 5.205 s
4.334
4.082

(s)
3.132

(s)
2.960

1.929 1.838

Y
0.7273 0.7151
(a) (b)
Time to reach ejection temperature, part
5.113 Time to reach ejection temperature, part 5.024
= 5.113 s
24 s
= 5.024

4.011 3.941

(s)
2.909
(s)
2.858

1.806 1.776

Z
Y
0.7038 0.6928
(c) (d)

Figure 10: Time to reach part ejection temperature with (a) conventional cooling channels, (b) series conformal cooling channels, (c) parallel
conformal cooling channels, and (d) conformal cooling channels with additive lines.

Table 2: Summary of Fill + Pack + Cool analysis results.

Time to reach ejection Time to reach part ejection Volumetric Temperature

Number Cooling
temperature temperature shrinkage variance
channel ∘
seconds seconds % C
1 CCC 15.63 5.664 11.39 9.723
2 SCC 14.63 5.205 9.89 6.436
3 PCC 14.13 5.113 8.498 5.693
4 CCAL 14.13 5.024 8.477 5.297

approximately 4000 [10]. The turbulent flow is very important ejection temperature for the case study part as shown by red
because it provides an additional mechanism for momentum color in Figure 8(a).
and heat transfer [11]. Cooling channels have a uniform However, time required to reach ejection temperature
diameter (𝑑) of 10 mm and they are placed at a depth of 10 mm decreased to 14.63 seconds by use of conformal cooling
(1 × 𝑑) from part surface. channel connected in series. This shows that using same
pitch and the cooling channel diameter conformal cooling
channels connected in series provides 6.39% faster cooling as
compared to the conventional cooling channels (Figure 8(b)).
4. Results and Discussions The simulation results show that both parallel conformal
cooling channel and conformal cooling channel with additive
The simulation results in terms of time to reach ejection cooling lines take 14.13 seconds to reach ejection temperature.
temperature (time required to reach the ejection temperature, Thus these combinations are 9.5% faster as compared to the
which is measured from the start of fill), time to reach conventional cooling channels (Figure 9). These results show
part ejection temperature (time required by the part to that the conventional cooling channel combination is the
freeze), volumetric shrinkage at ejection, and the temperature slowest cooling system because it requires more time than
variance of the part are discussed here. These results show that other systems. These CCC are basically straight drilled holes
conventional cooling channels take 15.63 seconds to reach that have some limitations in terms of geometric complexity
6 ISRN Mechanical Engineering

Volumetric shrinkage at ejection 11.39 9.894

= 11.39 % Volumetric shrinkage at ejection
= 9.894 %

8.820 7.681

(%)
(%)
6.251 5.468

3.682 3.255

Y
1.114 1.042
(a) (b)
Volumetric shrinkage at ejection 8.498 Volumetric shrinkage at ejection 8.477
= 8.498 % = 8.477 %

6.634 (%) 6.600

(%)
4.770 4.723

2.906 2.846

YZ
1.041 0.9686
(c) (d)

Figure 11: Percentage volumetric shrinkage at ejection with (a) conventional cooling channels, (b) series conformal cooling channels, (c)
parallel conformal cooling channels, and (d) conformal cooling channels with additive lines.

and nonuniform cooling between the surfaces of the part and The last parameter of comparison in this study is “tem-
cooling fluid mobility within the injection mold [12], whereas perature variance” among different regions of the part with
PCC and CCAL are faster combinations. respect to the average ejection temperature of the part. This
Similarly, when the results of time to reach part ejection temperature is responsible for the warpage of the part. If the
temperature are studied, the CCC takes 5.664 seconds, SCC mold temperature is not equal on two mold walls, this leads to
takes 5.205 seconds, PCC takes 5.113 seconds, and the CCAL thermokinetic asymmetry of melt flow. This, in turn, causes
takes 5.024 seconds. This shows that the CCC consumes the asymmetrical structure development in the part cross-
maximum time and CCAL takes minimum time to reach part section. As a result, different stresses in part’s cross-section
ejection temperature. The results also show that SCC, PCC, occur, which result in part warpage [13]. In this case study
and CCAL are 8.1%, 9.7%, and 11.29% faster, respectively, the ejection temperature of the part is 38∘ C. The temperature
as compared to the CCC. Thus CCAL is the fastest cooling variation simulations show that the variation of tempera-
channel combination as compared to others (Figure 10). ture in CCC is 9.723∘ C, whereas SCC, PCC, and CCAL
The next parameter of comparing these cooling channels show 6.436∘ C, 5.693∘ C, and 5.297∘ C temperature variation,
is percentage of “volumetric shrinkage at ejection.” This respectively (Figure 12). Thus, as usual CCC has maximum
parameter gives information about the percentage reduction temperature variation whereas CCAL has minimum. So
in volume of the part with respect to the original part at CCAL will have minimum part warpage.
the time of ejection. The lesser the value of the volumetric Figure 13 shows a comparison of “time to reach ejection
shrinkage is, the higher the part accuracy will be. The temperature” and “time to reach part ejection temperature” of
simulations results show that CCC shows 11.39%, SCC shows these cooling channel configurations as shown in Figure 14.
9.89%, PCC shows 8.498, and CCAL shows 8.477% shrinkage Figure 15 shows comparison of “volumetric shrinkage at
(Figure 11). ejection” and “temperature variation” of part due to these
The results show that CCC shows maximum shrinkage cooling channel configurations as shown in Figure 16.
whereas SCC, PCC, and CCAL show 13.16%, 25.39%, and Table 2 summarizes the results obtained from Autodesk
25.57% less shrinkage as compared to the CCC, respectively. Moldflow Advisor 2013.
Thus CCAL shows minimum shrinkage among other cooling On the basis of comparison of the results shown in
channel combinations. Table 2 and Figures 13, 14, 15, and 16 it can be concluded
ISRN Mechanical Engineering 7

Temperature variance 9.723 Temperature variance 6.436

= 9.723 ∘ C = 6.436 ∘ C

4.707 3.808

(∘ C)

(∘ C)
−0.3085 1.180

−5.324 −1.447

Y YZ
−10.34 −4.075
(a) (b)

Temperature variance 5.693 5.297

Temperature variance
= 5.693 ∘ C = 5.297 ∘ C
3.247 3.010

(∘ C)
(∘ C)
0.8005 0.7223

−1.645 −1.565

YZ
−4.091 −3.852
(c) (d)

Figure 12: Temperature variation in part with (a) conventional cooling channel, (b) series conformal cooling channels, (c) parallel conformal
cooling channels, and (d) conformal cooling channels with additive lines.

16 5.8

15.5 5.6

5.4
15
Time (s)
Time (s)

5.2
14.5
5
14
4.8
13.5
4.6
CCC SCC PCC CCAL
13
CCC SCC PCC CCAL Type of cooling channel
Type of cooling channel
Figure 14: Comparison of time to part ejection temperature.
Figure 13: Comparison of time to reach ejection temperature.

that “conformal cooling channels with additive cooling lines” 5. Conclusion

are the most efficient and suitable cooling system for the
case study part among other cooling channels. It has lower In this case study, four different types of cooling channel
time to reach ejection temperature, lower time to reach part layouts are studied named as “conventional cooling channels”
ejection temperature, lower volumetric shrinkage, and lower (CCC), “series conformal cooling channels” (SCC), “parallel
temperature variance; thus it will lead to a better part quality conformal cooling channels” (PCC), and “conformal cooling
with minimum cycle time. As the temperature variation is channels with additive cooling lines” (CCAL) for cooling
also minimum in CCAL, there will be minimum warpage of of a food container. Simulations for filling, packing, and
the part that translates to a better part quality as compared to cooling of molded part are performed on Autodesk Mold
the CCC, SCC, and PCC because of more uniform cooling in Flow Advisor. From simulation results it is being concluded
CCAL. that although the conformal cooling lines provide better
8 ISRN Mechanical Engineering

12 References
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Conflict of Interests
The authors declare that there is no conflict of interests
regarding the publication of this paper.

Acknowledgments
This research work is a part of “Design and Fabri-
cation of Energy Efficient Injection Molding Machine”
sponsored by Pakistan Science Foundation (letter no.:
PSF/Res/Invenandinnov/P-HITEC/2013). The authors of this
research work are thankful to Dr. Syed Touseef Mohi-ud-
Din Mr. Nizar Ullah Khan, Mr. Adeel Akhtar Shah, and
Mr. Luqman Ahmad Nizam for their technical support and
guidance.
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