Evaluating Suitable Materials and the Effects of Integrated Cooling Channels in Additively Manufactured Polymer Moulds for use in Injection Moulding

Injection moulding is one of the most common methods for producing plastic parts and provides good value in large order quantities. In recent years however, there has been an increasing demand for smaller production runs where injection moulding would be a prohibitively expensive production method. It has been identified that additive manufacturing can provide a cost-effective alternative in some of these cases. However, sacrifices in terms of production times and part properties must be made. As a compromise, it would be possible to produce moulds using additive manufacturing to use in injection moulding, however poor durability in the moulds and longer production times compared to traditional moulds remain a hindrance to fully adopting this concept. In this thesis the effects of integrating cooling channels into additively manufactured tooling (AMT) will be conducted. The anticipated effects of the cooling channels are that they will decrease the cooling time during injection moulding, but that they may also increase unwanted deformations within the mould. In addition, a material study with the goal of finding suitable materials and production methods for AMT will be carried out. To this end, this thesis aims to answer the following two research questions: RQ1: What are suitable materials and production methods to produce an AMT? RQ2: What are the effects of using integrated cooling channels in AMT? This thesis has used an exploratory case study as its basis, conducting a literature review, simulation studies and practical testing to find empirical data. The theoretical framework is based on peer reviewed articles as well as academic literature. The findings of the empirical studies have been thematically analysed and discussed using the theoretical framework as to answer the research questions. The findings of this thesis confirm that cooling channels have a positive impact on cooling time, however, the findings also showed an increase in internal deformation within the mould during the injection moulding process. Furthermore, this thesis has found that photopolymerization is a suitable production method for additively manufactured moulds and that the material chosen should have a glass temperature that is higher than the temperature of the injected plastic during injection moulding to be the most durable.