Pilot Study on Laminated Tooling with Implementation of Conformal Channel

This case study describes implementation of conformal channel in laminated tooling.
Laminated tooling is a simple and fast way to make metal tools directly for injection
molds in the rapid prototyping field. Injection moulding is the most common mass
production process for plastic parts. All thermoplastics and some thermosets can be
injection moulded to achieve a wide variety of sizes and intricate shapes. Injection
moulded parts can be found from electronics and power tools to appliances. Due to the
large impact that injection moulding has on the manufucturing industry, companies
constantly strive to shorten both cycle and product development time. Cooling channel
design is important in mould designs to achieve shorter cycles and reduced part stresses.
Traditionally, cooling channels have been machined into mould components to avoid
interference with the ejection system and other mould details. Over the years straight
conventional drilled cooling channels have given away to conformal technique.