A study on thermal and flow characteristics of an injection mold using a detachable core module with embedded heating

The purpose of this study was to develop an efficient mold heating technology by an embedded heating unit. To localize the heating effect in the mold core and prevent heat transfer to surrounding mold plates, the core module with embedded heating unit was assembled to a mold plate in a detachable manner. The detachable core module was then separated from the mold plate when the mold was opened, and thus could be rapidly heated by the embedded heater. The heated core contacted with the mold plate when the mold was closed, and could be cooled by heat conduction to the mold plate of which thermal inertia was much larger than that of the core module. To verify thermal efficiency of the proposed structure, heat transfer simulation was performed with an experimental validation. Mold filling simulation was also performed to investigate the effect of mold heating on improving flow characteristics through a thin and narrow channel. Injection molding experiments were also conducted by adopting the proposed embedded heating module.