• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 2005.06a
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• pp.1761-1765
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• 2005

The plastic injection molding industry is increasing pressure to reduce the cycle time in order to improve the productivity. The time of a cooling die is a large part of the cycle time. The conformal cooling channels can reduce the cooling time effectively as compared with conventional production die. It is hard to make the die with a conformal cooling channel by the conventional method. This paper introduces the method of a conformal cooling channel manufacturing by the DMT (Direct Metal Tooling) that is a new technology.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Manufacturing Process Engineers
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.92-98
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• 2020

In this study, an injection mold with conformal cooling channels was designed and manufactured for use in the production of a thick plastic cosmetic container that required high gloss surfaces. A cooling analysis verified the design of the conformal cooling channel for the cosmetic container, and also showed that the cooling efficiency was superior to that of the straight cooling channel. Slide cores designed with the conformal cooling channel were manufactured using the Layers Parting method and vacuum diffusion bonding. Subsequent test injection and quality inspection showed no problem in the appearance and dimensional accuracy of the produced product. The cycle time for product production was about 110 seconds, sufficient for mass production.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 2009.06a
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• pp.673-674
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• 2009

• Journal of the Korean Society of Manufacturing Process Engineers
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• v.17 no.5
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• pp.84-90
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• 2018

When producing a plastic horn cover for an automobile, since the interval between the ribs on the inner surface is narrow, conventional cooling channels cannot be applied and cooling of the mold is difficult. For this reason, the molding operation cannot be completed within a set cycle time. In this study, a conformal cooling channel was applied on the mold to solve the cooling problem. Injection molding simulation was carried out to confirm the effectiveness of the conformal cooling channel. In the analysis results, the mold temperature at the rib section decreased by 33%, and the mold temperature also decreased by 31%. This reduction in temperature allowed for molding within a set cycle time and demonstrated the effectiveness of the conformal cooling channel.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Manufacturing Process Engineers
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• v.18 no.11
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• pp.103-108
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• 2019

The cooling rate and the uniformity of mold temperature, in the injection molding process, possess great influences on the productivity and quality of replications. The conformal cooling channel, which is of a uniform spacing from the mold cavity by the metal additive manufacturing process, receives much attention recently. The purpose of this study is to develop a mold core with a curved conformal cooling channel for a pottery-shaped thick-wall cosmetic container through the hybrid method of direct metal tooling (DMT) process. In this study, we design a mold core that contains the curved cooling channel for the container. A method that divides the cavity is proposed and the DMT process is carried out to form the curved cooling channel. The test mold core, with the curved conformal cooling channel, has been fabricated by the proposed method to confirm the feasibility of the design concept. We show that no leakage is observed for the additive manufactured test mold core, and its physical properties demonstrate that it can be sufficiently used as the injection mold core.

• Design & Manufacturing
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• v.9 no.3
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• pp.34-40
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• 2015

In the study, Three-dimensional drawing parts for conformal cooling circuit cavity & core and their 3D Metal parts using DMLS(Direct MetalLaser Sintering) and NC integrated machining center were showned. For conformal cooling circuit cavity and core parts, I discussed its practicality to DMLS multiple machinins process introducing general manufacturing process and comparing with them.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 2007.11a
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• pp.71-72
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• 2007

• Design & Manufacturing
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.27-32
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• 2007

In the optical application demand for high quality lens is increasing. Plastics lenses are demanded more than glass lenses for large size lenses as well as micro-size lenses. It is difficult to apply typical straight cooling channels of injection mold to lens molding due to its non-uniform temperature distribution. In this study, we manufactured molds for plastic lenses with the conventional cooling channels and conformal cooling channels produced by the DMLS process. We evaluated cooling performance for the 2 molds by injection molding experiment. Also, uniformity of the temperature distribution was tested by infrared camera and temperature monitoring. We confirmed that the cooling performance and temperature uniformity with the conformal cooling channels is much improved from the ones with the conventional. The cooling time with the conformal cooling channels was reduced 30% compared with the conventional cooling channels.

• Transactions of Materials Processing
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• v.16 no.7
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• pp.549-554
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• 2007

The objective of this paper is to investigate into the fabrication technology of cores for the injection mould with three-dimensional conformal cooling channels to reduce the cooling time. The location of the conformal cooling channels has been determined through the injection molding analysis. The mould has been manufactured from a hybrid rapid tooling technology, which is combined a direct metal rapid tooling with a machining process. Several injection molding experiments have been performed to examine the productivity and the validity of the designed mould. From the results of the experiments, it has been shown that the proposed mould can mold a final product within a cooling time of 3 seconds and a cycle time of 21 seconds, respectively.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Manufacturing Process Engineers
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.9-14
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• 2015

The Direct Metal Tooling (DMT) process is a kind of additive manufacturing processes, which is developed using various commercial steel powders, such as P20, P21, SUS420, and other non-ferrous metal powders. The DMT process is a versatile process that can be applied to various fields, such as the molding industry, the medical industry, and the defense industry. Among them, the application of the DMT process to the molding industry is one of its most attractive and practical applications, since the conformal cooling channel cores of injection molds can be fabricated at a slightly expensive cost by using the hybrid fabrication method of DMT technology compared with parts fabricated with machining technology. The main objectives of this study are to provide various characteristics of the parts made using the DMT process compared with the same parts machined from bulk materials and evaluate the performance of the injection mold equipped with a conformal cooling channel core fabricated using the hybrid method of the DMT process.