Study on Temperature Distribution to Enhance the Mould Cooling Method Used in Vacuum Forming Applications

Abstract:

Vacuum forming is one of the simplest means of manufacturing thin plastic parts wherein a heated plastic sheet is sent through the mould by creating a vacuum between part and mould to get the desired shape. The mould used in vacuum forming process gets heated upon continuous production which has to be cooled continuously to produce parts without affecting quality. In this paper, the currently available techniques to cool the mould viz. Chill plate attachment method, straight drilled cooling channels are studied. Finite Element Analysis is carried out on various methods of mould cooling. Temperature distribution is the criteria considered to evaluate the results of each case. The results have demonstrated that the straight drilled cooling channels are better in comparison with the chill plate attachment method of mould cooling. The concept of conformal cooling channels designed based on part shape has also been introduced and studied to reduce the cooling time of the mould which is found to have a fair temperature distribution amongst the three mould cooling methods.

• Periodical: Key Engineering Materials (Volume 740)
• Pages: 86-92
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.4028/www.scientific.net/KEM.740.86
• Online since: June 2017
• Authors: B. Iftekhar Hussain*, Mir Safiulla, M. Brahmaiah
• Keywords: Mould Cooling, Temperature Distribution, Vacuum Forming

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