Efficient Cooling of Hot Spots in Injection Molding.

A Biomimetic
Cooling Channel Versus a Heat-Conductive Mold Material and
a Heat Conductive Plastics

Gerald R. Berger ,1 David Zorn,1 Walter Friesenbichler,1 Franz Bevc,2 Christian J. Bodor3
1
Department Polymer Engineering & Science, Injection Molding of Polymers, Montanuniversitaet Leoben, Leoben,
Austria
2
MAHLE Filtersysteme Austria GmbH, St. Michael 19, 9143 St. Michael ob Bleiburg, Austria
3
Doka Österreich GmbH, Josef Umdasch Platz 1, 3300 Amstetten, Austria

This study aimed at optimizing the injection molding process
of an automotive oil filter housing made from PA6.6. Mass
accumulations in its design intensely increased the cooling
time. In a first successful approach, a copper alloy mold
insert (λ = 106 Wm−1 K−1) that contains two externally cooled
heat-conducting copper pins (λ = 310 Wm−1 K−1) was
installed. We hypothesized that a biomimetic cooling channel
structure in a steel mold insert would even perform superior.
Using simulation software Sigmasoft® v5.0, the mold insert
materials (steel Bohler X20Cr13, Ampcoloy® 83), the plastics
grade PA66-GF35 (λ = 0.27 Wm−1 K−1 or λ = 0.40 Wm−1 K−1),
and three cooling designs were evaluated for their impact on
cooling the hot spots in the part: the copper pin-system,
a conformal cooling channel, and blood-vessel like chan-
nels. In the latter, the major artery branches into two sub-
arteries, which further divide into two capillary tubes
each. The capillaries merge into two sub-veins and those
fuse in the major vein again. As expected, the plastics
heat conductivity dominates the cooling. The biomimetic
(blood-vessel) channels, as hypothesized, cooled the
major hot spot more efficient than the conformal channel
and the copper pin system do. In detail, compared to the
heat-conductive insert, the cycle time may be reduced by
10 s, in spite of the lower heat conductivity λ (23.5 Wm−1 K−1)
of the steel insert. Using the biomimetic (blood-vessel) struc-
ture in a heat-conductive mold insert would reduce the cycle
time by a further second. However, raising the heat conduc-
tivity of the plastics would save another 15s. Experimental
tests proved the cooling efficiency. Nevertheless, cooling
channels only perform well, if they are close enough to the
mass accumulation. In conclusion, transferring biologic cool-
ing structures to injection molding seems to be promising.
Correspondence to: G.R. Berger; e-mail: gerald.berger@unileoben.ac.at
Fractions of this work were presented at the Polymer Moulds & Innovations
PMI 2016 conference in Gent, Belgium, Sep. 2016, at the Rapid Tech Confer-
ence in Erfurt, Germany, June 2017, and at the Leobener Kunststoff Kollo-
quium 2017 conference in Leoben, Austria, April 2017.
Assoc.Prof. Dr. Gerald R. Berger, Univ.Prof. Dr. Friesenbichler, and David Zorn
are currently at Montanuniversitat Leoben, Department Polymer Engineering & Sci-
ence, Institute of Injection Molding, Otto Gloeckl Strasse 2, 8700 Leoben, Austria.
Contract grant sponsor: Österreichische Forschungsförderungsgesellschaft;
contract grant number: Addmanu.at. contract grant sponsor: Austrian Ministry
for Transport, Innovation and Technology. contract grant sponsor: Austrian
Research Promotion Agency.
DOI 10.1002/pen.25024
Published online in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com).
© 2018 The Authors. Polymer Engineering & Science published by Wiley
Periodicals, Inc. on behalf of Society of Plastics Engineers.
This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License, which permits use and distri-
bution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is
non-commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made.
Ongoing advances in Additive Manufacturing will help to effi-
ciently implement these structures into mold inserts for injec-
tion molding. POLYM. ENG. SCI., 9999:1–9, 2018. © 2018 The
Authors. Polymer Engineering & Science published by Wiley Periodi-
cals, Inc. on behalf of Society of Plastics Engineers.
INTRODUCTION
In injection molding of plastics, minimizing the cycle time is a
key to cost-effectiveness. Typically, the cooling time, which is
the time needed for cooling the hot liquid melt in the cavity to a
thermoplastics part that is mechanically stiff enough to be ejected
from the mold, is the limiting factor.
In standard injection molds, two steel mold halves form the
cavity, which is the negative shape of the desired part geometry.
These contain a limited number of cooling channels, typically
apart from the cavity, in which water is pumped through to
remove the heat from the plastics via the mold. In parts of a sim-
ple geometry, the plastics itself dominates the cooling time,
because of its low heat conductivity. For complex-shaped parts
that contain deep hollow areas, in contrast, the adjacent mold
insert may govern the cooling, if its cross section is considerably
smaller than the contact surface to the hot plastics. In other words,
the hot plastics part transfers more heat into the mold insert than
the mold insert is able to conduct out.
To overcome this limitation, mold insert materials of a ther-
mal conductivity higher than the standard mold steels are used.
However, these materials, such as aluminum, copper, and copper
alloys, are sensitive to the thermo-mechanical stress in injection
molding, which also limits the number and the diameter of the
cooling channels in the insert. A further approach is to use one or
more conformal (close to the cavity surface) additive-manufactured
cooling channels in a steel mold, of which the use and the optimi-
zation has been researched in manifold studies, for example, Dimla
et al. [1], Guilong et al. [2], Park and Pham [3], Shayfull et al. [4],
Wang et al. [5], Xu [6], Xu, Sachs, and Allen [7], Xu and Sachs
[8]. Furthermore, Sachs et al. [9] used conformal cooling channels
to optimize the cooling of an injection molding die. However, the
design and the number of the cooling channels may also be limited
by the available space in the mold inserts.
Our approach is that nature offers solutions: within the biomi-
metic cooling designs, for instance, leaf veins (Nachtigall and
Blüchel [10]), lamellar structures, porous structures (Yadroitsev
et al. [11]), and a blood-vessel channel structure, the latter is the
most reasonable. This structure promises a uniform surface tem-
perature, a low flow resistance for the cooling fluid, an improved

POLYMER ENGINEERING & SCIENCE—2018

cooling of hot spots, less mechanically weakened mold materials,
and a fabricability in steel by laser powder bed fusion (L-PBF),
also known as selective laser melting.
Hermann [12] presented a planar blood-vessel structure to opti-
mize the cooling of solar panels. In contrast, we designed a 3D
blood-vessel cooling system for molding a complex 3D-shaped
automotive plastics part. Thereby, using an injection molding sim-
ulation software, the cooling efficiency of a mold insert contain-
ing (A) two copper pins, (B) one conformal cooling channel, or
(C) cooling channels similar to blood-vessels was simulated.
Moreover, the impact of the heat conductivity of the mold mate-
rial and the plastics on the cooling performance was analyzed.
Finally, the cooling efficiency of the blood-vessel design was
proved in a shop floor experiment. FIG. 2. The workflow of the study.

EXPERIMENTAL
Materials
The injection molded part is an automotive oil filter housing
that is made of polyamide (PA66 GF35 black). Figure 1 shows a
fraction of its 3D design, in which the mass accumulations reach
a wall thickness of 11 mm.
The injection mold is a complex single cavity mold, contain-
ing lifters (split-cores) and core pullers. Standard steel grades
were selected for the mold components, except for the mold
insert that was the focus of this study (Fig. 5A). To improve the
cooling of the mass accumulation, the mold insert was made
from Ampcoloy 83, which is a copper alloy of a heat conductiv-
ity of 106 Wm−1 K−1.
For simplification, the materials of this study are labeled by
their heat conductivity; the density and the specific heat capacity
were changed accordingly.
Workflow
Figure 2 illustrates the workflow of this study: first, data from
the existing serial process was acquired. Second, a comprehensive
simulation model of the part and the injection mold were built in
Sigmasoft® v5.0 to simulate the serial process. Third, the heat
transfer coefficient between the plastics part and the mold surface
was adapted until the measured and the simulated plastics part
surface temperatures were equal. Fourth, the new cooling designs
for the mold insert close to the mass accumulation were devel-
oped. Fifth, the cooling design performance was calculated. In the
serial condition, the pulse time, which is the period in that the
cooling water flow is switched on, was 14 s. For the new designs,
the pulse time was reduced significantly to avoid that the mold
surface temperature in the injection phase falls below the mini-
mum recommended 60 C. Finally, the necessary cooling time for
a safe plastics part ejection, depending on the heat conductivity of
the mold insert, the cooling designs, and the heat conductivity of
the plastics, was calculated.
Furthermore, in a first shop floor test, the cooling performance
of the blood-vessel design was evaluated.

Process Data
Table 1 lists the serial process settings. The melt temperature
of 300 C was measured by using a thermocouple in a melt pot. A
FLIR T400 infrared camera was used to detect the plastics part
surface temperature after the ejection. This camera features a stan-
dard error of 2 C at a temperature of 20 C and a moisture of
50%. It detects wave lengths of 2–5 μm. For the black-colored
plastics, the emissivity was set to 0.98. Figure 3 illustrates the

TABLE 1. The settings of the serial injection molding process [13].

Settings

Injection time (s) 2.78

Packing pressure (MPa) 95–70
Packing time (s) 14
Rest cooling time (s) 53
Cycle time (s) 73
Melt temperature ( C) 300
Hot-runner temperature ( C) 310
Coolant temperature ( C) 25
FIG. 1. Sectional view of the 3D design of the plastics part. The light-gray- Pulse times of cooling (s)a 8–30
shaded areas indicate mass accumulations, in which the wall thickness
a
reaches 11 mm. Depending on the mold components.

2 POLYMER ENGINEERING & SCIENCE—2018 DOI 10.1002/pen

FIG. 3. Serial process: the thermographic photo of the measured surface temper-
ature of the ejected plastics part [13] identifies the mold insert that is responsible
for the hot spot in the part.
measured inhomogeneous surface temperature of a serial part at
ejection.
Simulation Model and Verification
The simulation model was built in Sigmasoft® v5.0. Sigmasoft
[14] uses finite-volumes to mesh the mold components and the
plastics part. It calculates both, the plastics flow and the heat
transfer from the plastics melt to the cooling channels of the mold
during the injection molding process. The mesh size determines
the accuracy of the simulation model, nevertheless, the finer the
mesh, the more calculation time and computer power is required.
Therefore, the part was meshed in 0.8 mm discrete volumes,
whereas the mold components were discretized in 3 mm–5 mm
elements. Moreover, only the mold components that contribute to
the cooling of the part were considered.
As mentioned above, the heat transfer coefficient between the
plastics and the mold surface (Table 2) was adapted until the mea-
sured and the simulated plastics part surface temperatures were
equal, as shown in Figs. 3 and 4.
Mold Insert Cooling Designs
Figure 5 depicts the three cooling designs of the mold insert.
The serial solution (A) contains two copper pins (heat conductiv-
ity of 310 Wm−1 K−1) to conduct the heat from the insert out.
A water-flooded channel surrounds the free ends of the pins. The
second design (B) uses one conformal channel of 2.5 mm diame-
ter and 445 mm length, which is cooled directly by a water flow.
The minimum distance to the insert surface is 1.5 mm. Biology
influenced the third design (C), which is similar to blood-vessels,
again cooled directly by a water flow: the major artery branches
FIG. 4. Serial process: the simulated temperature of the plastics part surface
[13] agrees well with the experimentally measured temperature, as depicted
in Fig. 3.
into two sub-arteries, which further split up into two capillary
tubes each. The capillaries merge into two sub-veins and finally
into the major vein again. The diameters are 3 mm, 2.12 mm, and
1.5 mm; furthermore, the vessel subsections feature the same spe-
cific length. The total channel length is 480 mm. The diverging
and converging angles are 60 .
In this biomimetic insert, the minimum distance between the
cooling channel and the mold insert surface is only 1.5 mm,
which may make the insert sensitive to penetration by the plastics
melt under injection pressure. Using the Cadmould® Structural
Essential module, a simple linear-elastic structure-mechanics sim-
ulation was used to prove the mechanical stability. The L-PBF
X20Cr13 steel is still undergoing development, thus mechanical
material data was not accessible. However, the X20Cr13 is
expected to perform better than the MS1 (~DIN 1.2709) steel,
which is typical in L-PBF manufacturing. Therefore, we used
material data from MS1 steel, which features an elasticity limit
Rp0,2—the stress that yields a maximum deformation of 0.2% in
a tensile test, DIN 10002—of 1100 MPa in the built-state and

TABLE 2. The set heat transfer coefficients (HTC) in the simulation

model [13].

Contact HTC (Wm−2 K−1)

Sliding mold elementsa 300

Fixed mold elementsa 10,000
Plastics melt to cavityb 500 (<16.8 s); falling; 300 (>20 s)
FIG. 5. The design of the cooling system in the mold insert, using (A) two
a
Recommended by Sigmasoft® v5.0. copper pins, (B) a conformal cooling channel, or (C) a blood-vessel (biomi-
b
Lower HTC as the plastics part detaches from the cavity surface while the metic) channel structure. The main dimensions of the mold insert are
melt cools and shrinks. 100 × 59 × 25 mm3 [13].

DOI 10.1002/pen POLYMER ENGINEERING & SCIENCE—2018 3

 TABLE 3. The diameters and the process settings of the impulse cooling
around the copper pins tips, in the conformal cooling channel, and in the
blood-vessel channel [13].

Setting Copper pin Conformal Blood-vessel

Channel diameter (mm) 6 2.5 3/2.12/1.5

Water temperature ( C) 25 25 25
Flow rate (L/min) 11 2 2
Flow active (pulse) (s) 0–14 2–6; 20–24a 2–3.5; 20–24a
a
Intermediate switch off as soon as the mold insert surface reaches the mini-
mum recommended temperature of 60 C.

258 C was assumed to be sufficient for a safe ejection. To esti-

FIG. 6. Von-Mises stress in the biomimetic mold insert if a pressure of
150 MPa is applied to its surface.
1980 MPa in the hardened-state [15]. The calculated von-Mises
stress above the cooling channels reached only a maximum of
450 MPa (Fig. 6), assuming a static pressure of 150 MPa loaded
on the surface of the insert. Thus, the blood-vessel-cooled mold
insert is expected to be insensitive to penetration by the injected
plastics.
Cooling Design Performance
An injection-molded plastics part needs to be cooled until it is
stiff enough not to be damaged when ejected from the mold. The
ejection temperature is defined as the mean temperature (over the
part thickness) indicating this state. In other words, a solid frame
of plastics is already stiff enough, in spite of a soft plastics core.
The cooling time is the period from the start of injection to the
ejection of the part.
Simcon [16] defines the mean ejection temperature for the
PA66 GF35 to be 210 C. As Sigmasoft did not compute a
mean temperature, the region where the plastics freezes last
was identified instead (Fig. 7). A core temperature below
mate the necessary (minimum) cooling time, a virtual tempera-
ture sensor (MP) was set in the final-freezing plastics core
close to the mold insert surface.
In preceding simulations, the new designs proved to be very
efficient, thus the cooling pulse times were reduced (Table 3) to
avoid lower surface temperatures than 60 C, which is the mini-
mum recommended mold surface temperature in the injection
phase for the plastics grade used.
Limitations of Simulation Software
Sigmasoft® v5.0 assumes a turbulent flow in the cooling chan-
nels, in other words, it sets the heat transfer coefficient to
10,000 Wm−2 K−1, which needs a minimum Reynolds number of
2,300. Both channel systems feature a turbulent flow if a flow rate
of two liters per minute is impeded. In the conformal channel, the
Reynolds number was calculated to 16,919 and the pressure loss
was estimated to 0.75 MPa, assuming 25 C, 2.5 mm, 445 mm, and
0.2 mm, for the water temperature, the channel diameter, the chan-
nel length, and the channel surface roughness, respectively. Assum-
ing the same flow rate and water temperature, the total pressure
need for the blood-vessel structure was 0.61 MPa, whereas the
Reynolds numbers ranged from 8,000 to 25,000.
Design of Experiments
The “Design of Experiments” (DoE) method enables determining
the most effective influences (inputs) on the performance and the
quality parameters of a process (outputs). Moreover, it calculates the
interaction effects of the inputs. Applying analysis of variance
(ANOVA), significant factors and interactions may be separated from
insignificant ones. Statistically significant main effects and

TABLE 4. 23 Design of experiments.

Heat conductivity Heat conductivity

of the mold of the plastics
DoE run Cooling design insert (Wm−1 K−1) (Wm−1 K−1)

Serial process A 106 0.27

OV 1 B 23.5 0.27
OV 2 B 106 0.27
OV 3 C 23.5 0.27
OV 4 C 106 0.27
OV 5 B 23.5 0.40
FIG. 7. The final-freezing fractions of the molten plastics. MP denotes a vir- OV 6 B 106 0.40
tual temperature sensor to determine the minimum necessary cooling time. OV 7 C 23.5 0.40
The frame outlines the mold inserts from Fig. 5. [Color figure can be viewed OV 8 C 106 0.40
at wileyonlinelibrary.com]

4 POLYMER ENGINEERING & SCIENCE—2018 DOI 10.1002/pen

 FIG. 8. Simulated surface temperature distribution of the mold inserts 6 s after the start of the plastics injection for
(A) the copper-beryllium-based mold insert that contains two copper pins for conducting heat, (B) the steel mold insert that
includes a conformal cooling channel, and (C) the steel mold insert that contains a blood-vessel (biomimetic) cooling
channel.

TABLE 5. The simulated mold insert surface temperatures 3.5 s or 6 s after α is the probability that the Null hypothesis is true, in other words,
the start of injection and the minimum cooling times predicted from the simu- an effect is considered to exist although it is random; it should thus
lation runs. be as small as possible. In technical applications, an α of 0.05 (5%)
is typical. The p-value is the error level that just not causes a true
Minimum
DoE run Period (s) Minimum ( C) Maximum ( C) cooling time (s)
Null hypothesis. Accordingly, the smaller the p-value is, the more
significant is the effect of the factor on the response [17].
Serial process 3.5 102.2 193.4 70 Table 4 shows the 23 factorial design of experiments used to
Serial process 6 99.0 181.8 70 determine the significant main effects and interaction effects of the
OV 1 6 60.7 205.0 65.5 cooling design, the mold insert material, and the plastics heat con-
OV 2 6 66.7 147.7 62.5 ductivity on the cooling performance. (A) depicts the original
OV 3 3.5 59.2 194.5 60
design with the copper pins, (B) represents the conformal cooling
OV 4 3.5 58.0 152.8 59
OV 5 6 62.1 210.3 49.5 channel system, and (C) denotes the biomimetic (blood-vessel) struc-
OV 6 6 68.0 153.7 47 ture. The mold insert material is either the copper-alloy Ampcoloy®
OV 7 3.5 62.1 197.2 45 83 or the steel grade X20Cr13. The heat conductivity of the plastics
OV 8 3.5 56.3 157.1 44 was set to the measured value of 0.27 Wm−1 K−1 or virtually
increased by 50% to 0.40 Wm−1 K−1, neglecting that heat-
conductive fillers may also change the heat capacity and the density
interactions pass a low error level α. The ANOVA calculates the sta- of the plastics compound. All DoE runs were simulated only once,
tistical significance of a factor, by comparing the response deviation as repeated simulations would give exactly the same results.
that is caused by changing the factor level to the random variation of
the response that occurs at the same factor level. It thereby tests the Experimental Pretest of Cooling Performance
Null hypothesis “There is no repeatable difference due to the factor In a lab test, the real cooling performance of the biomimetic
level change.” However, to determine a significant factor, the Null cooling design in an L-PBF-manufactured steel mold insert was
hypothesis has to be rejected with a high probability. The error level tested. First, the mold insert was heated in an oven to 77 C. After

TABLE 6. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) to determine the effects on the cooling performance.

Source Degrees of freedom Adjusted sum of squares Adjusted mean squares F-value p-value

Model 3 504.354 168.118 271.71 0.000

Linear 3 504.354 168.118 271.71 0.000
Heat conductivity of the mold insert 1 8.201 8.201 13.25 0.022
Cooling design 1 44.651 44.651 72.16 0.001
Heat conductivity of the plastics 1 451.501 451.501 729.70 0.000
Error 4 2.475 0.619
Total 7 506.829

DOI 10.1002/pen POLYMER ENGINEERING & SCIENCE—2018 5


FIG. 9. Evolution of the maximum plastics core temperature at the sensor
position MP (of Fig. 7) depending on the heat conductivity of the plastics, the
cooling design, and the heat conductivity of the mold insert. [Color figure can
be viewed at wileyonlinelibrary.com]
temperature equalization, the insert was taken out and connected
to a cooling system providing water of 25 C in a volume rate of
0.8 L/min. Using an IR-thermocamera, the surface temperature
evolution and distribution was acquired then. Additionally, the
same test was simulated in Sigmasoft software.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Modeling the mold and the process in the simulation software
Sigmasoft® v5.0, the performance of the cooling designs was
evaluated. Furthermore, the heat conductivity of both the mold
insert and the plastics was analyzed for their capability to improve
the cooling of hot spots. A hot spot is a region in the part or in
the mold that cools considerably slower than the other regions. It
may dominate the cycle time in injection molding.
Mold Insert Surface Temperature Homogeneity
We hypothesized that a blood-vessel channel structure cools
the plastics part more homogenous than state of the art designs,
FIG. 10. Liquid plastics of a temperature >250 C at the end of the cycle. The frame outlines the mold insert. The heat conduc-
tivity of the plastics in OV 8 is 50% higher than in OV 4. [Color figure can be viewed at wileyonlinelibrary.com]
6 POLYMER ENGINEERING & SCIENCE—2018
for instance, a conformal cooling channel (flooded by water) and
heat-conducting copper pins. The results confirm this hypothesis.
Six seconds after the start of injection, the surface temperature
of the original (copper pin) mold insert ranged from 99.0 C to
181.8 C (Fig. 8A). The conformal channel reduced the minimum
temperature to 60.7 C (Fig. 8B), whereas the biomimetic channels
yielded the lowest temperature of 59.2 C (Fig. 8C), although, its
cooling pulse period lasted only 1.5 s compared to 4 s for the con-
formal channels. Furthermore, Fig. 8B) demonstrates a weaker
cooling in intermediate regions, as the conformal channel is far.
Although a meander-like channel would eliminate this disadvan-
tage, the weakened insert cross section would suffer in mechanical
performance considerably.
The mold insert material in Fig. 8A is Ampcoloy; it is steel
in (B) and (C). In spite of the lower heat conductivity, both the
conformal cooling channels (B) and the blood-vessel structure
(C) cool the insert better than the copper pins in (A), except
for the singular tip at the smaller finger, in which neither a
cooling channel nor a copper pin is nearby. Thus, this (mold
insert) hot spot is dominated by the mold insert material,
as shown in Table 5 (maximum temperature). Increasing the
heat conductivity of the mold insert reduces the hot spot tem-
perature considerably. Moreover, the blood-vessel structure
reduces the maximum temperature compared to the conformal
cooling channels; however, its impact is underestimated as the
point in time is only 3.5 s for the blood-vessel structure, while
it is 6 s for the conformal cooling channels. The (increasing)
heat conductivity of the plastics raises the heat flow in the part
and thus enhances the maximum temperature at the mold insert
surface. Surprisingly, the mold insert heat conductivity λmold
and the cooling design interact, as the maximum temperature
in OV 4 is higher than in OV 2—same in OV 8 and OV 6—although
in OV 4, λmold is 106 Wm−1 K−1 and the cooling design is the blood-
vessel one. Nevertheless, this interaction effect diminishes with the
ongoing cycle.
Statistical Analysis
At the end of the simulated molding cycles, the maximum plas-
tics temperature at the sensor position is dominated by the heat
DOI 10.1002/pen
 FIG. 11. The initial filling of the blood-vessel channel structure indicates that the system is not perfectly balanced. The
flow rate of the water was set to 2 L/min.
conductivity of the plastics, followed by the cooling design, and
least, the mold insert heat conductivity. All three effects are statis-
tically significant (p-value <0.05, Table 6) and negative:
• Increasing the heat conductivity of the plastics from 0.27 to
0.40 Wm−1 K−1 reduces the maximum plastics temperature
at the sensor position by 15.0 K.
• Changing the mold insert material from steel to Ampcoloy
lessens the temperature by 2.0 K.
• Using the biomimetic cooling design instead of a conformal
channel diminishes the temperature by 4.7 K.
• The interactions of the factors were insignificant (p-values
>0.05).
As expected, if the plastics heat conductivity is elevated, the
heat from the plastics center to the mold insert surface is con-
ducted more efficient; furthermore, more heat is transferred to the
cooling channels, the higher the mold material heat conductivity
is. In conclusion, as the latter is less effective than the cooling
designs, more effort should be drawn to new cooling channel
designs than increasing the heat conductivity in L-PBF steel
grades.
Minimum Cooling Time
A cooling time of 70 s was sufficient for a safe plastics part
ejection in the serial process, in which the mold insert of
λ = 106 Wm−1 K−1 that contained two externally cooled copper
pins of λ = 310 Wm−1 K−1 was used.
Assuming a plastics core temperature of 258 C to be sufficient
for a safe ejection, minimum cooling times may be determined for
each DoE run. Figure 9 and Table 5 display the potential to
reduce the cycle time by 7.5 s, using the conformal cooling
(OV 2) and by 11 s (OV 4), using the blood-vessel system, if the
mold material is Ampcoloy and the plastics is the standard one.
Even if the mold insert is made of steel, the cooling time may be
reduced to 60 s (OV 3) using the blood-vessel system. Moreover,
the cycle time may be minimized to less than 50 s, if the heat
DOI 10.1002/pen
conductivity of the plastics is increased from 0.27 Wm−1 K−1
(OV 1–OV 4) to 0.40 Wm−1 K−1 (OV 5–OV 8).
Maximum Plastics Temperature in the Part at Ejection
To recapitulate, the blood-vessel (biomimetic) channel struc-
ture in the mold insert cools the plastics part more efficient than
the state of the art designs. Figure 10 depicts that an other hot
spot in the part occurs in a region that is remote from the insert
and is thus less affected by the insert. In the serial process, this
hot spot was not critical, because the surrounding plastics was
stiff enough for a safe ejection. However, if the cycle time is
reduced, this hot spot may dominate the total necessary cooling
time. Thus, an additional cooling for this mass accumulation
might be necessary. This maximum plastics temperature in the
part was only affected by the heat conductivity of the plastics
λplastics. Although the maximum temperature of DoE runs OV 1–
OV 4 (λplastics = 0.27 Wm−1 K−1) was 287 C, it was 272 C for
OV 5–OV 8 (λplastics = 0.40 Wm−1 K−1).
In other words, the best pathway to eliminate the remaining hot
spot in the part would be to adapt the plastics heat conductivity.
However, the therefore required additives might change the mate-
rial performance considerably.
Alternative Cooling Designs
A system of parallel cooling channels was infeasible, because
the used mold does not allow for connecting several cooling chan-
nels to the insert.
More and finer branched blood-vessels would homogenize the
mold insert temperature further; however, diameters below
1.5 mm are too sensitive to pollution and pressure loss.
Nevertheless, one major drawback of the blood-vessel system
remains: its sensitivity to pollution. This shall be solved by a new
PTFE-like chemical coating (developed by Kaynak [18]) of the
channel walls and a prefilter to stop greater lime and other solid
particles. Moreover, the system is still not perfectly balanced,
which the initial filling study in Fig. 11 depicts.
POLYMER ENGINEERING & SCIENCE—2018 7
 FIG. 12. Measured and simulated surface temperature evolution of the L-PBF-manufactured blood-vessel mold insert
in a test without plastics (initial mold insert temperature = 77 C, coolant flow switch-on after 30 s, coolant tempera-
ture = 25 C, and flow rate = 0.8 L/min).

Experimental Evaluation of Cooling Performance
Figure 12 illustrates the surface temperature evolution of the
preheated (77 C) blood-vessel mold insert in a laboratory test
without plastics. The left column shows the measured temperature
of the L-PBF-manufactured steel insert, and the right column
depicts the simulated temperature. From 30 s on, water of 25 C is
pumped through. In Fig. 7, MP in the plastics hot spot was intro-
duced. P1 in Fig. 12 denotes the projection of MP onto the mold
insert surface. Starting at 71.4 C, the temperature of P1 falls to
61.4 C within 1.5 s, to 40.9 C within 5 s, and to 31 C within

8 POLYMER ENGINEERING & SCIENCE—2018 DOI 10.1002/pen


FIG. 13. Measured surface temperature of the ejected part using the L-PBF-
manufactured X20Cr13 mold insert (blood-vessel structure, measured flow
rate 2 L/min, and coolant temperature = 25 C).
9.8 s, although the flow rate was set to only 0.8 L/min. Moreover,
simulation and experimental validation agree well.
Figure 13 proves the efficiency of the biomimetic cooling in a
shop floor test. Using the Ampcoloy mold insert, the maximum
part surface temperature after ejection was 211 C (Fig. 3); in con-
trast, the temperature was only 174 C if using the biomimetic
cooling design in the additive manufactured X20Cr13 steel mold
insert (Fig. 13).
CONCLUSIONS
In this study, the performance of three cooling designs to cool
a complex-shaped injection molded PA6 GF35 part that exhibits a
mass accumulation of 11 mm thickness and deep hollow areas
was simulated. In addition, the impact of the mold material and
the heat conductivity of the plastics were evaluated:
• As expected, plastics of elevated heat conductivity transfers
the heat from the plastics core to the mold insert surface
more efficient.
• Furthermore, more heat is transferred to the cooling chan-
nels, if the heat conductivity of the mold material is high,
however, this effect was minor important.
• As a blood-vessel (biomimetic) cooling channel structure
performed superior than a single conventional conformal
channel, more effort should be drawn to new cooling chan-
nel designs.
• In detail, compared to the serial process cycle time of 73 s,
the molding cycle may be reduced by 10 s, using the biomi-
metic design and by 25 s, using additionally a plastics grade
that features a 50%-increased heat conductivity.
As predicted, the biomimetic cooling channels in an L-PBF-
manufactured X20Cr13 steel insert successfully cooled a hot spot
in the plastics part.
DOI 10.1002/pen
In conclusion, transferring biologic cooling structures to techni-
cal applications is promising. Ongoing advances in Additive
Manufacturing will help to build those structures efficiently.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The work of this paper was performed within the research pro-
ject “addmanu.at”. The authors would like to thank the Austrian
Research Promotion Agency (FFG) and the Austrian Ministry for
Transport, Innovation and Technology (BMVIT) and Mahle Fil-
tersysteme for funding.
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