Simplifying Cooling Design With Advanced Automation

Using intuitive sketching tools and smart catalog components, designers can place baffles along the mold’s waterlines. The model can then be inspected to ensure the baffles intersect the waterlines, are the correct size, need to be placed at an angle or require depth adjustments. Source (All images) | Cimatron

While mold design hasn’t gotten any easier, the availability of innovative technologies that remove the guesswork from the complex process do make it easier to quickly understand what works and what does not work.

CAD/CAM packages for mold design and manufacturing provide functions specific to mold development for every stage of the process and in terms easily understood by moldmakers. Among these tools are functions that automate significant portions of cooling design, such as the collision-free placement of waterlines and baffles, and components like connectors and plugs.

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Software that includes flow analysis tools can help identify problems early and late in the design process so the size and placement of waterlines and components can be optimized. More specialized design tools, like those developed for conformal cooling, help moldmakers using additive manufacturing (AM) technologies design especially complex cooling-channel shapes.

Waterline Placement

With so many factors to consider — such as distance from molding faces and interference with ejector-pin and screw holes — the safe and effective placement of waterlines can be a mold designer’s biggest challenge. CAD/CAM systems that enable moldmakers to approach jobs with their preferred design strategies offer agility while ensuring that waterlines are collision-free and perform as intended.

Once an initial runner and gate design is complete, flexible modeling technologies enable designers to use various methods for placing waterlines. To place a waterline in a cavity, for example, a designer can simply place a catalog component — such as a connector — into the design and the system will automatically cut the waterline based on the size of the component. If a “symmetry” function is selected, an identical waterline will automatically be placed on the opposite side of the cavity.

Though mold design remains a complex process, the increasing availability of new and innovative design tools is helping moldmakers confidently bring products to life.

After a waterline is placed, its length can be edited with intuitive design tools that enable designers to click on and change the dimension displayed on the model. The style or size of the cut can be changed by replacing the existing component with a different component from the catalog. When the new component is placed, all the other dimensions are updated. Similarly, constraints set by designers ensure that dimensional relationships between design elements remain, even if sizes are changed.

Designers can easily spot collisions and proximity issues, and verify designs by checking the cooling holes against other cooling holes, the active faces of the tool and other faces. They can also easily see the distance between a cooling hole and the nearest component. For example, if the cooling channel collides with or is too close to an ejector pinhole, the software will flag the issue using a customizable color-coded graphic.

Baffle Design

When the cooling channels are placed and you’re ready for baffle design, it is highly beneficial to use dedicated mold software that enables the placement of all baffles at once instead of placing and checking baffles one at a time.

Without the automation of cooling design functions, it could take a full day to place and check numerous baffles individually. With CAD/CAM software, this task can be accomplished in minutes and the cooling system can be checked and verified in its entirety.

Using intuitive sketching tools, designers can place baffles along the mold’s waterlines without following a preset pattern. The model can then be inspected to ensure the baffles have intersected the waterlines, are the correct size, if they need to be placed at an angle and if the depth should be adjusted. Identical to making waterline edits, it’s easy to select and apply different parameters or dimensions to baffles.

Powerful modeling tools that simplify design and simulation technologies that provide vital feedback are among the tools that help make the work of tough design challenges easy.

To verify that baffles are collision-free and a safe distance from mold features, each baffle hole can be checked against the other baffle holes, mold faces, slide pockets and even lifters. When verification is complete, the system will generate a report that can be shared with the production team or customer.

Especially helpful are systems that automatically generate customizable tables for baffles that display ordering and dimensional information. These tables also assign numbers to the baffles that correspond with a number on the model to ensure correct assembly.

CAE software creates a digital twin of the mold to validate the design, ensuring correct placement of runners, gates and waterlines, and to analyze factors like filling, packing, cooling and warpage. 

Flow Analysis

Flow analysis is essential in determining a concept's promise during the initial design stage and is equally vital at the end for design verification. Ideally, CAD/CAM flow analysis tools should be easy to use and provide mold designers with the information to easily identify and mitigate design problems.

Flow simulation helps to streamline the placement of runners, gates and waterlines and to analyze factors like cooling, filling pressure, velocity and temperature — including the part’s core temperature.

By providing a complete picture of how mold temperatures affect a design’s performance, flow simulation predicts how a cooling design impacts the final part, including issues like weld lines and warpage. In cases with problems, such as warpage, a powerful CAD/CAM system can create a model of the warped part generated by the flow analysis to help designers compensate for the defects.

CAD/CAM software supports the design of conformal cooling channels, which conform to complex part shapes and are typically made with 3D printing technologies. It automatically ensures that channels maintain a constant distance from mold faces and other channels for uniform cooling.

Conformal Cooling

While conformal cooling is not widely used, CAD/CAM software with advanced mold design capabilities supports the design of conformal cooling channels, which are typically manufactured using 3D printing technologies.

Conformal cooling waterlines hug, or conform, to the shape of the part to be printed, so the shapes are more complex than traditional waterlines. For example, printer-friendly conformal channel shapes include teardrops, Xs and diamonds.

Designers only need to supply the system with the required geometry and distance parameters between the waterlines and the mold face, and the software will generate a waterline path based on the cross-sectional shape it is given.

Though mold design remains a complex process, the increasing availability of new and innovative design tools is helping moldmakers confidently bring products to life. Powerful modeling tools that simplify design and simulation technologies that provide vital feedback are among the tools that help make the work of tough design challenges easy.