Abstract
Injection molding is the most popular method for producing plastic products because of its high productivity and manufacturability for making various complex shapes. An efficient cooling system, which achieves a uniform temperature distribution, can minimize the undesired defects that influence the quality of molded part. Traditionally, the cooling design is still mainly based on practical knowledge and designers' experience. This method is simple and efficient in practice, but it becomes less feasible when the molded part becomes much more complex. Topology optimization for heat diffusion problem is one of the expected solutions to overcome this problem. This paper has tried to establish a topology optimization method to design the optimal layout of cooling channels of injection molding dies by COMSOL Multiphysics. We have solved the heat diffusion problem based on the SIMP method. In order to prove the effectiveness of the topology optimization, numerical examples of various practical cases have been carried out. As the results, complicate topologies that have curved and brunched shapes have been obtained. Comparing the cooling achievement of the optimized topology design with that of the conventional design, it was found that the optimized topology design attained the uniform heat diffusion and corresponded to heat conditions.
