Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical

Engineers, Part E: Journal of Process

Mechanical Engineering
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Numerical study of thermal control system for rapid heat cycle injection molding process
Moez Hammami, Fatma Kria and Mounir Baccar
Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Part E: Journal of Process Mechanical Engineering published
online 14 April 2014
DOI: 10.1177/0954408914527917

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Original Article

Proc IMechE Part E:

J Process Mechanical Engineering
Numerical study of thermal control 0(0) 1–12
! IMechE 2014
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molding process DOI: 10.1177/0954408914527917

uk.sagepub.com/jpme

Moez Hammami, Fatma Kria and Mounir Baccar

Abstract
This paper studies heat transfer during rapid heat cycle injection molding process. Actually, the mold is heated and
cooled with channels in which steam or water circulates. The purpose of this numerical study is to improve the design of
heating/cooling system to ameliorate the quality of the polymer part and the cycle productivity. Transfers in mold,
translating thermal phenomena are predicted by the finite volume method and the fractional area volume obstacle
representation in cyclic transient regime. It was found that the steady cycle is obtained rapidly (after two or three
cycles) for the rapid heat cycle molding process when compared to conventional injection molding. The mathematical
modeling was developed to explore the effect of control temperature system characteristics on temperature uniformity
of the cavity surface and thermal response efficiency. The three-dimensional simulation results show the limitations of the
conventional system when compared to the conformal configuration. This research study also compares three conformal
thermal control systems, and shows that the heating energy consumption can be greatly decreased (about 27%) with the
amelioration of the temperature distribution by means of the improvement of the channel layout.

Keywords
Rapid heat cycle molding, thermal control, conformal heating/cooling, numerical analysis

Date received: 4 September 2013; accepted: 19 February 2014

cooling channels. By presuming straight cooling chan-

Introduction nels, the authors have sought out a compromise
In injection molding process, the thermal control of between production efficiency and the uniformity of
mold is an important parameter to ameliorate fina1 the temperature distribution. Thus, with this opti-
product properties and cycle productivity. Flow mization process, a satisfactory uniformity of the
mark, weld mark, and faulty surface are some of the part temperature distribution is achieved.
problems found in this process. Complex parts with Hassan et al.6 have investigated the effect of the
thin sections pose additional problems in mold cooling channel layout on the efficiency of the injec-
conception. tion molding process and the shrinkage. The con-
In the aim of determining the cooling time of the sidered 2D simulations envisage a mold for a
polymer injection process, many analytical research T-shaped part cooled with four channels. In their
works were conducted and published. For example research work, Hassan et al.6 have studied the cooling
those of Yu and Sunderland,1 Zarkadas et al.,2 channels’ position effect on the cooling process. As
Sobotka et al.3 and others have supposed that the their results indicated that the cooling channel
temperature of the cavity wall is constant and equal layout, which accomplishes the rapid cooling process,
to the initial mold temperature and they have used cannot perform optimum shrinkage rate distribution
averaged thermophysical properties. These models throughout the final part, they have suggested a com-
assume that the heat transfer in the part is one dimen- promise to accomplish both goals.
sional (1D) occurring mainly in the cooling phase.
The cooling system design for injection molding
has been studied by Tang et al.4 and Qiao,5 using Mechanical Engineering Department, National Engineering School of
numerical simulations. In their research studies, the Sfax, Tunisia
authors present a 2D detailed analysis to simulate
Corresponding author:
transient heat conduction and optimize the interval Moez Hammami, Mechanical Engineering Department, National
between the cooling channel center and the center Engineering School of Sfax, Soukra, B.P. 1173-3038 Sfax, Tunisia.
line, as well as the distance separating two adjacent Email: HammamiMoez2003@yahoo.fr

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2 Proc IMechE Part E: J Process Mechanical Engineering 0(0)

Recently, Li et al.7 have developed a new configur- (RHCM) is suggested. For this purpose, Chen
ation space method to automate the configuration of et al.14 and Chang and Hwang15 have characterized
cooling system for injection mold in 3D with the cap- numerically the heating performance of the electro-
ability to manipulate user-defined constraints. The magnetic induction and the infrared heating.
main function of the C-space used in this work, is to Li et al.16 have investigated in 2D the heat transfer
determine all the possible geometry of the cooling in RHCM equipped with heating channels for produ-
system design with the possibility of exploring both cing rectangular part. To optimize the temperature
topology and geometry. The authors have used their distribution uniformity, the authors have used the
method to investigate the optimal layout cooling variance between the temperatures of the tracking
system for injection mold with multi-cavity. points and their average temperature as an objective
Aiming at the amelioration of the cooling channel function. Actually, the authors have noted that the
performance, many authors8–10 have proposed a con- optimization of the distances between the neighbor
formal cooling method. Xu et al.8 in their study have heating channels can greatly ameliorate the uniform-
searched the optimal location and size of the cooling ity of the mold temperature.
channels to obtain the steady state within one injec- Wang et al.17,18 have proposed a 2D study to opti-
tion cycle. Nevertheless, for the complex shapes case, mize the heating/cooling system design for rapid heat
the surface of a part must be decomposed and then, cycle injection molding. Two heating/cooling media
the cooling systems are generated for each zone one (electric heating/steam heating) were compared. The
by one. Lin9 has modeled and optimized the cooling effect of nature, layout, and structure of the tempera-
channel diameters, cooling channel spacing, and cool- ture control system and mold design on cycle efficiency
ing line equations. He has also predicted the product and part quality were studied by determination of the
performance (warpage) by the developed abductive thermal responses in different cases.
network model. Lam et al.10 have reported a In the aforementioned research works, a conven-
method that uses a genetic algorithm to optimize the tional regulation system with aligned heating channels
cooling channel design (location and size of the cool- is adopted. Recently, Wang et al.19 have carried out
ing channels) and process condition selection. 2D numerical simulations for heat transfer and fati-
Also, Wang et al.11 have used a cooling system that gue analysis to investigate the effect of the conformal
is conformal to the shape of the product to reduce the regulation system on cycle efficiency, structural
cycle time and optimize the temperature uniformity strength, and mold fatigue life. For the optimized
and the volumetric shrinkage. Besides, they studied system, the numerical results have demonstrated
two cases of the cooling efficiency: a helmet and a that the productivity increased by 61.70% and the
cell phone. They have demonstrated that the new temperature uniformity at the cavity surface improved
types of cooling circuit remove heat from the plastic by 80.97%, and the cavity structural strength slightly
parts more uniformly and much faster compared to ameliorated. Nevertheless, the previously mentioned
the conventional straight channels. Moreover, it has RHCM studies provide results only for the first
been found that the channels generated by their cycle without taking into account the temperature dis-
method allow the obtaining of the final product with tribution variation through the injection cycles.
less shrinkage than with conventional cooling circuit. As can be seen, the conformal thermal regulation
On the other hand, Au and Yu12 have proposed a system in RHCM process has not been sufficiently
conformal cooling system with multi-connected investigated in the previous numerical studies. That
porous characteristics based on the duality principle. is why, this paper presents a 3D numerical modeling
Their study has shown that the presented conformal of the RHCM thermal response. The thermal control
cooling passageway can ensure more uniform heat of mold is made with heating/ cooling channels. The
extraction from the mold plate than other configur- aim of this research work is to investigate the effect of
ations. In addition, the authors have found that the channels layout on temperature uniformity of mold
hot spots and the warpages can be eliminated with the cavity surface and heating/ cooling efficiency over a
multi-connected porous passageway. certain number of cycles. For this objective, the heat
Recently, based on morphological concepts, transfer equations translating transfer phenomena
Agazzi et al.13 have introduced the idea of regulation developed in the process are solved using a finite
of the temperatures of the polymer and the mold by a volume method and the fractional area volume obs-
cooling surface enveloping the plastic part. The tacle representation (FAVOR).
authors have also modified the design of the obtained
surface to search the optimal design of the discrete Mathematical formulation and
cooling channels. However, this transition decreases
numerical method
the performance of the cooling system.
On the other hand, to improve the quality of the In RHCM, the mold cavity should be rapidly heated
product, many authors have proposed the increase of to a temperature higher than the polymer glass tran-
the mold temperature before the filling stage. So, a sition temperature, before melt injection. Then the
novel technology called rapid heat cycle molding mold should be cooled rapidly after the filling stage

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Hammami et al. 3

to solidify the shaped polymer. This section will pre-

sent mathematical formulation and numerical method
to determine the thermal behavior induced in RHCM
for LCD panel (Figure 1) production.

Figure 1. LCD panel. Figure 2. Studied domain (quarter of the mold).

Table 1. Properties of the polymer and mold material.23

Thermal
Calorific conductivity
Temperature ( C) Density (kg/m3) capacity (J/(kg K)) (W/(m K))

Mold material AMPCO 940 8710 380 208

PolymerABS XR 404 70 1059.2 1721 0.149
90 1059.2 1747 0.16
110 1059.2 1903 0.188
130 960 2073 0.203
170 960 2093 0.206
210 960 2190 0.22

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4 Proc IMechE Part E: J Process Mechanical Engineering 0(0)

In this study, the mold was assumed to be sym- layout. Our objective is to rapidly achieve uniform
metric and then it is sufficient to consider only the temperature distribution on the cavity functional sur-
quarter of the mold (Figure 2). Also, we considered face not only to obtain a panel with high-quality sur-
only the cavity/core blocks since there are insulation face but also to improve the cycle efficiency.
layers between this part and the corresponding retai-
ner plates (heat losses to retainer plates are
neglected).
On the other hand, the resistance to heat and the
transfer between the different parts of mold was neg-
lected (perfect thermal contact). Since, for RHCM
process the heating and cooling phases are the most
important, only the conduction heat fluxes for the
polymer are considered. In order to determine the
heat transfer at the interface channel mold, two over-
all heat transfer coefficients are used:18
For the heating phase, with the presence of liquid
film at the channel surface following the vapor
condensation:
 3
0:25
w w w  s gHL
hcc ¼ 0:555
D
T
where g is the gravity acceleration, D, the channel
diameter, HL, the liquefaction latent heat, w, the
thermal conductivity of the liquefied water, ,
the dynamic viscosity of the liquefied water, w, s,
the densities of the liquefied water and saturated
steam density, and
T, the difference between the
temperatures of the liquefied water layer and the
channel surface.
For the cooling phase, a fixed overall heat transfer
coefficient is adopted:


hcr ¼ 3500 W= m2 K

With regard to the boundary conditions, a zero heat

flux condition is used in the symmetry planes. Besides,
a zero heat flux condition is considered at the exterior
surface of the mold since an insulation layer was X (mm) Z (mm)
added to limit the heat losses and accelerate the heat-
ing phase. Channel 1 15 57
The resolution of the energy equations is based on Channel 2 30 57
the finite volume method.20 To define complex geom-
etry, FAVOR method21 was used. With this tech- Channel 3 45 57
nique, a geometric surface can divide a rectangular Channel 4 60 57
mesh cell into different domains. Thus, six area frac-
tions and one volume fraction for each element have Channel 5 75 57
been stored to specify the domains: cavity, polymer, Channel 6 90 57
and channels. Regarding temporal discretization, an
implicit formulation was adopted. In addition, the Channel 7 15 18
implicit scheme of alternated directions of Douglass Channel 8 34 18
and Gunn22 was used for the temporal integration.
Channel 9 49 18

Results and discussion Channel 10 64 18

The mold made with AMPCO 940 (Table 1) is heated Channel 11 89 18

and cooled by transferring the steam and cold water,
respectively, into the channels. A particular interest is Figure 3. Three-dimensional model of ¼ RHCM mold with
provided to study the heating/cooling channels conventional temperature control system.

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Hammami et al. 5

Initially, the mold has ambient uniform tempera- assumptions of tool opening negligible time, and part
ture of 30  C. The required heating time is determined ejection and tool closing stages in hidden time (with
when the temperature at the cavity functional surface heating phase), a cyclic process was modeled.
exceed 120  C, which represents the heat distortion Subsequently, the mold temperature distribution at
temperature of the used polymer ABS XR 404 the cooling end of the previous cycle was used as
(Table 1). In this study, the filling stage was neglected the initial condition for the next cycle.
because the heating and cooling stages represent more To rapidly heat and cool the mold, insulation
than 90% of the RHCM time. Therefore, we suppose layers were used to limit heat losses at mold plates.
that the cooling stage begins just after the heating The results are given for three configuration systems
phase and the cavity is filled with polymer at injection and fixed channel diameter (6 mm), heating saturated
temperature (230  C). On the other hand, the required steam temperature (180  C), and cooling water tem-
cooling time is determined when the polymer in the perature (30  C).
whole cavity is cooled until 95  C: the temperature To obtain a precise determination of the thermal
must be lower than the glass transition temperature response, the influence of mesh and time on the
because the considered polymer is amorphous. Thus, results was studied. Thus, a computational domain
the plastic part can resist the action of the ejectors and consisting of 102  102  77 cells in X, Y, and Z dir-
its form is preserved after ejection. Therefore, with the ections, respectively with uniform spacing and a time

Cycle 1 -P1 (17.64 s) Cycle 1 -P2 (17.64 s) Cycle 2 -P1 (57.57 s)

145 Cycle 2 -P2 (57.57 s) Cycle 3 -P1 (97.18 s) Cycle 3 -P2 (97.18 s)

140
Temperature (°C)

135

130

125

120
A-A* B-B* C-C* D-D*
Cavity surface

Figure 4. Temperature profiles in P1 and P2 for conventional case at the end of the heating phases of the first three cycles.

Figure 5. Temperature distribution in P1, P2, and P3 for conventional case (57.57 s): (a) temperature distribution in P1; (b)
temperature distribution in P2; (c) temperature distribution in P3.

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6 Proc IMechE Part E: J Process Mechanical Engineering 0(0)

step 10-3s were found to be satisfactory for obtaining heating phase). It was found that there is an import-
accurate results at acceptable computed time. Three ant heating rate in the corner of the LCD panel due
planes P1, P2, and P3, characterized by the point to the contribution of three channels in the tempera-
groups (A, B, C, D); (A*, B*, C*, D*), and (E, F, ture elevation of this zone. On the other hand, the
G), respectively, were selected to study the cavity central part of the mold slowed down the heating of
temperature distribution (Figure 1). the point A. Indeed, heat dissipated quickly to the
central part of the mold and then the lateral areas
were heated more rapidly. Thus, the temperature gap
Conventional temperature control system decrease for the second cycle can be explained by the
Figure 3 shows the 3D model of ¼ RHCM with con- energy preserved in the central part of the mold.
ventional temperature control system. The channels
are distributed directly along the mold bearing in
mind ejector pin and hot runner positions.
Figure 4 represents temperature profiles in two
planes P1 and P2 at the end of the heating phase of
the first, second, and third cycles after 17.64 s, 57.57 s,
and 97.18 s, respectively. It was found that the tem-
perature gap at the cavity surface after heating was
the largest for the first cycle, and reached a constant
value after the second cycle. As shown in Figure 4,
it is obvious that there is a great difference between
the planes P1 and P2, which can be explained by the
channel layout. In fact, compared with the other
points, the heat rate is quite important for point B.
Additionally, Figure 5 shows the temperature dis-
tribution in P1, P2, and P3 at t ¼ 57.57 s. It is found
that the point D* is poorly heated in this system and
the temperature is distributed unevenly. The conven-
tional temperature control system cannot reach the
required temperature distribution uniformity, and
then, the product may contain several defects, such
as bad surface quality, distortion, thermal stress and
others.

First conformal temperature control system

Since the goal is the amelioration of the temperature
uniformity at the cavity surface, a second temperature
control system (Figure 6) was proposed. With this
first conformal configuration, the heating/cooling
channels circuit has a shape that is conformal to the
cavity surface. Thus, there is no difference between P1
and P2. In addition, we have positioned channel 5 to
better heat the panel extremity (D and D* points).
Using the first conformal temperature control X (mm) Z (mm)
system, the required molding cycle time was 31.66 s, Channel 1 42 57
which is greatly lower than the conventional case
(39.61 s). This indicates that heating efficiency can be Channel 2 57 57
improved by using the conformal configuration. Channel 3 72 57
However, for this configuration, the temperature pro- Channel 4 90 57
file in the plane P1 (Figure 7) also shows a large tem-
perature gradient at the cavity surface at the end of Channel 5 90 42
the heating phases. In fact, a disparity of about 20  C Channel 6 50 21
appears between A and C points for the first cycle Channel 7 65 21
and then the gap decreases and stabilizes approxi-
mately at 10  C. Channel 8 90 21
To better understand the problem, Figure 8 dis-
plays the temperature distributions in P1 and P3 at Figure 6. Three-dimensional model of ¼ RHCM mold with
t ¼ 73.03 s (end of cooling phase) and 81.46 s (end of the first conformal temperature control system.

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Hammami et al. 7

Actually, in this zone, the temperature at the end of distribution obtained with the second conformal
the cooling phase (Figure 8) is far from the ambient system without channel 4 is away from the required
temperature considered for the first cycle. uniformity. But for the steady regime, it is found that
there is a slight difference in temperature values and
cycle duration between the two configurations. On the
Second conformal temperature control system
other hand, a comparison between the two configur-
To ameliorate the temperature control system, we ations of the second conformal system leads to the
must look for a configuration that shortens the heat- deduction that the configuration without channel 4
ing time and provide more uniform temperature dis- facilitates the mold manufacturability by reducing
tribution to improve the part quality. Then after the total number of drilling operations. In addition,
many attempts, we proposed a second conformal tem- if these configurations contribute to a weak increase in
perature control system described in Figure 9. the cycle period, it is noteworthy that the second con-
Figure 10 presents a comparison between two con- formal temperature control system reduces the tem-
figurations of the second conformal system with and perature gap compared to the previous systems. In
without channel 4. For the first cycle, the temperature fact, this system attenuates the excessive temperature

Cycle 1 (16.42 s) Cycle 2 (49.74 s) Cycle 3 (81.46 s)

145

140
Temperature (°C)

135

130

125

120
A-A* B-B* C-C* D-D*

Cavity surface

Figure 7. Temperature profiles in P1 for the first conformal system at the end of the heating phases of the first three cycles.

Figure 8. Temperature distribution in P1 and P3 at t ¼ 73.03 s (end of cooling phase) and 81.46 s (end of heating phase): (a) tem-
perature distribution in P1 (t ¼ 73.03 s); (b) temperature distribution in P3 (t ¼ 73.03 s); (c) temperature distribution in P1 (t ¼ 81.46 s);
(d) temperature distribution in P3 (t ¼ 81.46 s).

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8 Proc IMechE Part E: J Process Mechanical Engineering 0(0)

increase near the point C. In order to give more accur-

ate information about the temperature uniformity,
Figure 11 represents temperature distribution in P1
and P3 at the end of heating stage for the second
configuration without channel 4. The improvement
of the temperature distribution is significant.
For the second system without channel 4, Figure 12
shows the temperature distribution at the plane P1
just after the end of the heating stage and the cooling
phase beginning of the third cycle (87.85 s). It can be
noted that the temperature at the cavity surface
increases at the beginning of the cooling stage and
remains higher than 120  C during some time. Thus,
this interval allows sufficient time to account for poly-
mer injection and then the filling stage is assumed to
be in hidden time.

Comparison of the three systems

Figure 13 presents the cyclic transient variations of
point G temperature with time for 100 s for the four
configurations. It has been noted that the steady cycle
is obtained rapidly (after two or three cycles) for the
RHCM process compared with conventional injection
molding (CIM). At the beginning, it can be seen that
the temperature increases more rapidly with the con-
ventional configuration, but with this system the most
important temperature gap has been obtained. In
Center addition, it is also found that the cooling speed of
coordinates X (mm) Z (mm)
Channel 1 37 51 the conventional case is much slower than those of
Channel 2 55 60 the conformal cases, which is mainly because of the
Channel 3 70 60 overheating observed in this case. Furthermore, at
Channel 5 90 42
Channel 4 35 21
the steady regime, the temperature of point G at the
Channel 6 50 21 beginning of the heating stage is about 70  C for the
Channel 7 65 21 conventional system and 75  C for the conformal con-
Channel 8 90 21
figurations, which can explain the difference between
the duration of the first cycle and the following cycles.
Figure 9. Three-dimensional model of ¼ RHCM mold with To further investigate the difference between the
the second conformal temperature control system. previous systems, Figure 14 shows a comparison of

Cycle 1 -with channel 4 (15.94 s) Cycle 1 -without channel 4 (18.03 s)

Cycle 2 -with channel 4 (49.74 s) Cycle 2 -without channel 4 (53.56 s)

130
Cycle 3 -with channel 4 (83.26 s) Cycle 3 -without channel 4 (87.85 s)
Temperature (°C)

125

120
A-A* B-B* C-C* D-D*
Cavity surface

Figure 10. Temperature profiles in P1 for the second conformal system at the end of the heating phases of the first three cycles.

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Hammami et al. 9

Figure 11. Temperature distribution in P1 and P3 for the second conformal case without channel 4 (87.85 s): (a) temperature
distribution in P1; (b) temperature distribution in P3.

125
Temperature (°C)

120

t = 87.85 s t = 88 s t = 89 s

115
A-A* B-B* C-C* DD-D*

Cavity surface

Figure 12. Temperature evolution at the cavity surface after the end of the heating stage.

160

140

120
Temperature (°C)

100

80

60
Conventional system
40 First conformal system
Second conformal system with channel 4
20
Second conformal system without channel 4
0
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
Time (s)

Figure 13. Temperature evolution of point G.

the required heating/cooling time, consumed energy two cycles. Reciprocally, the necessary cooling time
and maximal temperature gap at the exterior cavity has not been changed significantly for the different
surface for the first three cycles. It is found that there cycles.
is a considerable difference in the temperature distri- However, as it can be seen in Figure 14, if the first
butions and required heating time between the first conformal system has a substantial effect on the

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10 Proc IMechE Part E: J Process Mechanical Engineering 0(0)

(a) 9.16 (b) 25.04

8.86 3 24.69
3 8.43 23.23
Cycle number

Cycle number
11.23 28.4

9.27 25.13
8.87 2 24.66
2 861 2329
11.21 28.38
18.03 26.26
15.94 1 24.93
1 16.42 24.71
17.64 28.72

0 5 10 15 20 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35
Time (s) Time (s)

(c) (d) 5.44

94.26 4.4
3 99.26 3 13.88
104.64 18.41

Cycle number
129.82
Cycle number

5.76
95.32 4.31
2 99.43 2 14.73
10631 18.43
129.46
10.44
213.05 5.58
1 208.05 1 27.28
221.91 21.43
235.5

0 50 100 150 200 250 0 5 10 15 20 25 30

Energy (kJ) Temperature gap (°C)

Second conformal configuration without channel 4

Second conformal configuration with channel 4
First conformal configuration
Conventional configuration

Figure 14. Comparison of different systems: (a) required heating time [s]; (b) required cooling time [s]; (c) consumed energy [kJ];
(d) maximal temperature gap [K].

reduction of the cycle period, the improvement of the

temperature distribution is not sufficient with this
configuration. By contrasting the conventional and
the first conformal systems with the second conformal
system, Figure 14 demonstrates that the good tem-
perature distribution in the last configuration allows
the decrease of the energy consumed for the heating.
The comparison of the two configurations of the
second conformal system, Figure 14 shows that the
configuration without channel 4 is slightly slower.
But this configuration reduces the heating consumed
energy (about 5%) with approximately the same tem-
perature gap at the cavity surface. This indicates the
efficiency of this system especially since we have Figure 15. Simplified 2D structure of RHCM mold for rect-
reduced the fabrication problem without a significant angular part.18
increase in cycle time.

Validation
To prove the validity of our developed numerical Table 2. Thermal properties of the retainer plate, insulation
model, we have reproduced the 2D results reported layer, and cavity/core.18
earlier by Wang et al.18 pertaining to the heating
Heat Thermal
phase of RHCM for a rectangular part (Figure 15).
Density capacity conductivity
Two cavity materials are considered: AISI P20 and Material (kg/m3) (J /(kg K)) (W/(m K))
AMPCO 940 (Table 2). Furthermore, the mold is sup-
posed to be heated with channels (D ¼ 6 mm) and con- Retainer plate AISI 1045 7850 486 49.8
stant saturated steam temperature (180  C). Insulation layer Bakelite 1400 1420 0.4
Giving the temperature evolutions of the point ‘B’ Cavity AISI P20 7850 460 34
for the two cavity materials in heating phase, AMPCO 940 8710 380 208
Figure 16 shows a good agreement between our

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Hammami et al. 11

180

150

Temperature (°C) 120

90 Temperature B with AISI P20 material (Wang G. and al. (2010))

Temperature B with AISI P20 material (Our results)

60
Temperature B with AMPCO 940 material (Wang G. and al. (2010))
30
Temperature B with AMPCO 940 material (Our results)

0
0 20 40 60 80 100
Time (s)

Figure 16. Temperature responses of the point ‘B’ on the cavity surface in heating stage.

simulation results and those of Wang et al.18 It is control temperature system have demonstrated
found that the mold with AISI P20 material has improvements in both production rate and part qual-
higher heating speed than the copper alloy mold. ity as compared with conventional production tools:
This is mainly because the AMPCO 940 absorbs this configuration reduces the cycle time by 13.7%,
more heat. the temperature gap by 70.45% and the consumed
energy by 27.37%. In our future studies, to improve
this work, we will take into account the structural
Conclusion analysis to provide stress distribution and then the
A 3D numerical model has been built to study the heat- fatigue life of the RHCM.
ing and cooling of RHCM for LCD panel production
and determine the thermal control temperature system
Funding
efficiency. The proposed numerical model is proven to
be a useful tool for optimizing the thermal control This research received no specific grant from any funding
agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.
system enabling a greater efficiency of the RHCM pro-
cess. Three configurations of the thermal control
system were studied and multiple cycles were modeled Conflict of interest
to allow the system to be stabilized. It has been demon- None declared.
strated that a cyclic ‘steady state’ is reached after two to
three cycles and there is a big difference between tem-
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