A Computer-Aided Optimization

Approach for the Design of

L. Q. Tang
Injection IVlold Cooling Systems
K. Pochiraju
A methodology is presented for the design of optimal cooling systems for injection
mold tooling which models the mold cooling as a nonlinear constrained optimization
C. Chassapis problem. The design constraints and objective function are evaluated using Finite
Element Analysis (FEA). The objective function for the constrained optimization
problem is stated as minimization of both a function related to part average tempera-
S. Manoochehri ture and temperature gradients throughout the polymeric part. The goal of this
minimization problem is to achieve reduction of undesired defects as sink marks,
Design and Manufacturing Institute, differential shrinkage, thermal residual stress built-up, and part warpage primarily
Department of Mechanical Engineering, due to non-uniform temperature distribution in the part. The cooling channel size,
Stevens Institute of Tectinology, locations, arui coolant flow rate are chosen as the design variables. The constrained
Hobol(en, NJ 07030 optimal design problem is solved using Powell's conjugate direction method using
penalty function. The cooling cycle time and temperature gradients are evaluated
using transient heat conduction simulation. A matrix-free algorithm of the Galerkin
Finite Element Method (FEMj with the Jacobi Conjugate Gradient (JCG) scheme
is utilized to perform the cooling simulation. The optimal design methodology is
illustrated using a case study.

Introduction Figure 1 shows a conceptual illustration of the optimal cool-

ing system design methodology. Such a computer-aided optimal
Numerical simulations of the injection molding process,
cooling channel design consists of an optimization solution
when used efficiently, can provide a direct feedback to guide
technique and a FEA capability. The numerical optimization
product, tooling and process design efforts, and as such repre-
code interacts with the FEA code to find cooling channel loca-
sent an essential component to the computer-aided design and
tions and processing conditions that meet the specified design
manufacturing of plastic parts. Each cycle of the injection mold-
objective. The analysis effort requires multiple simulations to
ing process incorporates three important stages: mold filling,
find the best combination of changes to the design variables
melt packing and part cooling. More than seventy percent of
that satisfies the constraints and minimizes the objective func-
the molding cycle time is taken up by the mold cooling stage
tion. The process is repeated until the objective function cannot
in practical application of thermoplastic part formation. Many
be further reduced. Since cooling channel locations are changed
aspects of production efficiency and part quality are signifi-
after each optimization procedure, the mesh model is regener-
cantly affected by the mold cooling process. An efficient cooling
ated prior to the FEA when the new cooling channel locations
system design aiming at reducing cycle time must minimize
are supplied. Therefore, it requires a flexible mesh generator
such undesired defects as sink marks, differential shrinkage,
which can easily interface with user-defined routines. The mold
thermal residual stress built-up and part warpage. To minimize
cooling process is modeled as a cyclic, transient heat conduction
part cooling time while maintaining component stability, the
problem with convective boundary conditions on the mold and
designer must utilize tools which would aid in the design of
cooling channel surfaces. The difficulties of the problem are
mold cooling systems and assure uniformity of cooling through-
due to complex geometry introduced by the cooling channel
out the part, thereby leading to an optimized process design
layout and significant difference of material properties between
under optimum processing conditions.
the part and mold. Most of the time of an optimization procedure
Optimization methods have been widely used in various de- is consumed by the FEA. Such an effort could only be feasible
sign and manufacturing problems (Pochiraju et al., 1995; Shim through time efficient FEA algorithms. The authors (Tang et
and Manoochehri, 1993 and 1994). However, there is a limited al., 1996) have developed a matrix-free algorithm of the Galer-
experience in applying optimization methods to the cooling kin FEM and JCG technique for 3-D mold cooling analysis.
system design of injection mold tooling. Cooling system design
In the present paper, the optimization process is implemented
seeks to obtain a uniform temperature distribution and less cool-
using Powell's conjugate direction search method using penalty
ing cycle time, which depend upon mainly part geometry, cool-
function and the Galerkin FEM with the matrix-free JCG for
ing channel layout, and processing conditions. Although com-
mold cooling analysis. The content of the present paper is orga-
puter-aided design techniques have greatly been developed, the
nized as follows: A brief account of the governing equation,
choice of cooling channel placement in the mold primarily has
initial and boundary conditions for mold cooling analysis, and
been based on the designer's past experience, which to a certain
the optimal design of cooling system are given. The objective
extent has been also influenced by ease of manufacture. As part
function, design variables and constraints are then discussed.
geometry becomes more and more complicated, an experience-
Afterwards, the numerical implementation is described of 2-D
based approach becomes less and less feasible. Therefore, it
and 3-D mold cooling analysis for a "T"-shaped part. Finally,
is necessary to develop computer-aided optimization tools to
conclusions are given.
achieve efficient cooling system designs that optimize channel
layout type as well as cooling line locations.
Mold Cooling Problem
The injection molding process consists of three important
Contributed by the Design Automation Committee for publication in the JOUR-
NAL OF MECHANICAL DESIGN . Manuscript received Feb. 1996. Associate Technical stages: mold filling, melt packing and part cooling. An injection
Editor: D. Dutta. processing cycle starts with filling the mold cavity with polymer

Journal of Mechanical Design Copyright © 1998 by ASME JUNE 1998, Vol. 120 / 165

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Problem Setup:
Set Objective Funcrion, Design
Variables & Constraints
sGiven Initial Design Variables
Optimization Process:
Optimize Cooling Channel Layout
& Processing Conditions
Mesh Generation:
Remesh the Mold System
Finite Element Analysis:
Simulate Heat Transfer in the Mold System
Validate the Uniformity of Temperature
Distribution
Output Results
Fig. 1 Conceptual illustration of the optimal design methodology
melt at a high temperature. After the mold is filled, additional
polymer melt is packed into the cavity at a very high pressure
to compensate for shrinkage. This is followed by the mold
cooling process, where the polymer melt cools and solidifies
essentially due to conductive heat transfer from the mold sur-
faces to the part until the part is sufficiently rigid to be ejected.
After several cycles the heat transfer in the mold becomes stead-
ily cyclic. We call the period of these cycles as the steady cyclic
period. The cooling cycle time is defined as the time period
from the end of packing stage till the ejection of the part. The
schematic view of a typical cooling system in a mold is shown
in Fig. 2. The coolant first enters the cooling circuit at the
supply manifold, flows through the cooling channels, and leaves
the circuit through the collection manifold. The collection mani-
fold takes the coolant to the temperature control unit where the
coolant temperature is regulated.
Governing Equation. The mold and part are treated as an
entire computational domain. The gap resistance between the
mold and part melt interfaces is ignored in this formulation
because of difficulty to determine shrinkage dependent contact
between the part and mold. As most mold cooling analyses
(Chen and Chung, 1994; Chiang et al., 1993, Himasekhar et a l ,
1989, 1992), a perfect thermal contact between the interfaces is
assumed due to lack of data for the gap resistance. Iterative
procedures that solve mold and part as separate computational
domains with specified continuities at the interface are unneces-
sary in this numerical model and, therefore, no additional nu-
merical errors are introduced. The overall energy balance equa-
tion is as follows.
166 / Vol. 120, JUNE 1998
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dT _ J d^T d^T d^T
(1)
where the density p = Pm, the specific heat C = C„, and the
thermal conductivity K = K„, for the mold, p = pp,C = C,, and
K = Kp for the polymer melt, the suffices m and p denote the
mold and the part, respectively, Tis the temperature distribution.
Initial and Boundary Conditions. The heat of the molten
polymer is taken away by the coolant moving through the cool-
ing channels and by the air around the exterior mold surface.
The coolant is flowing through the channels at a certain flow
rate and the temperature at the inlet of the cooling channels is
pre-assigned. Heat exchange takes place by forced convection
between coolant and cooling channel surface and natural con-
vection between the ambient air and the exterior mold surface.
Chiang et al. (1993) treated the exterior surface as adiabatic
because the heat loss through the exterior surface is less than
5 percent of the overall loss in most injecfion molding applica-
tions. This approximation simplified the problem and at the
same time points to the fact that 95 percent of the heat of the
molten polymer must be removed by the coolant which is pass-
ing through the cooling channels. The boundary conditions are
specified as, for / > 0,
-K„,^
on
= h{T- r„), onr (2)
where n is the normal vector, the heat coefficient h, and temper-
ature T^ at the cooling channel and external mold surface are
defined as:
h = he. To, = Tc at the center of cooling channel
h = h„, T^ = Ta on the mold surface (3)
It is assumed that the mold temperature is initially equal to the
coolant temperature and uniform everywhere. Subsequently, the
mold temperature distribution at the end of the previous cycle,
which is no longer uniform, is used as the initial condition for
new cooling cycle.
T, at t =0
T = (4)
T{x,y,z) at t = jr (j 1,2,...)
where r is the period of a cooling cycle. Uniform injection
temperature is assumed as initial condition of the melt:
T=T,„i at t=JT (; = 0, 1,2, . . . ) (5)
Optimal Design of Cooling System
Two important aspects, i.e., uniformity of part temperature
distribution and production efficiency, should be of primary
importance in any cooling system design effort. The rate of heat
exchange between the plastic part and the mold is a decisive
factor in the economical performance of an injection mold. At
the same time uniformity of temperature distribution in the
part significantly affects the finished part quality. These aspects
depend on the part geometry, the coolant temperature and flow
rate, the cooling channel layout, the mold material, the specific
heat of the polymer material, and the melt injection temperature,
etc.
Cooling system design can be considered as a constrained
optimal design problem which can then be stated as a minimiza-
tion of an objective function 5?(X) where l i s the design variable
vector. In optimal cooling system design, X may represent cool-
ing channel size, number and location at certain control points,
coolant type and flow rate. The constraint equations are pre-
sented as equality relation (54(X) = 0) and inequality relation
Transactions of thie ASME
 Temperature
control unit

Mold
,
o 0
L

Collection «
rz
J^ , •• ••
)-•,

/
/
/

Supply 1 — \ \ —•
Cooling channels Polymer part 4— Pump
manifold manifold

^ K ^
j
)
/

o O
Fig. 2 A schematic view of a typicai cooling system in a molding plate

iSj{X) > 0 ) . The objective function and constraint equations
for this study are presented in the following sections.
Objective Function. It is important to choose a reasonable
objective function, because the result may be significantly dif-
ferent for different objective functions. Here, we test different
objective functions by consideration of the rms temperature
effect and the temperature difference effect:
The rms temperature effect:
%{X) =
Sio(%)
w = 0.0, the maximum temperature difference effect, f (S)
Constraints on Cooling Channel Locations. For the case
where the cooling channels are straight and aligned in the z
direction, the cooling channel location can be fully specified by
their respective x and y coordinates as shown in the schematic
Fig. 3. The center location of the ith cooling channel is denoted
as r, = {Xi, >,}, while the interval between two adjacent cooling
channels is L;.,+i = ||r,+i| cos (^,+i — |r,i cos 0, | (represent
to the X coordinate) and the distance from the center of a cooling
channel to the center line of the part is represented by the
distance H, = ||r, | sin (^, | (represent to the y coordinate). The
(6) design variables for cooling channel locations are defined as

The maximum temperature difference effect: •5^21-1 — Li.i+\

((•=1,2,..., /) (9)
X'li = Hi
%{X) = (7)
S2o(.a;)
For mold cooling system design, only inequality constraints in
where S^ denotes the interface area of the mold and part, and the form of §; (%') a 0 need to be considered:
Tave is averaged interface temperature defined by,
.vji-,: Li,i+\ ' - Z) - 6 > 0
T(X)dS„ D ( 1 = 1,2, . . . , / ) (10)
H, - 6 - ^ ^ 0
2 ' 2
T^in and r„ax are the minimum, maximum temperature at the
interface of the mold and the part, %o(X) and ?f2o(X) are the where D is the diameter of a cooling channel and p, the thickness
values of %(X) and ^(X) at the first iteration of the optimiza- of the part. A restriction factor 6 > 0 is also set to avoid the
tion process, called the normalization factors. coincidence of the cooling channel with the part surface.
The goal of the optimization problem formulated is to main- Constraints on Process Conditions. As discussed before,
tain uniformity in the temperature fields as the part cools within 95 percent of the heat of molten polymer is taken away by
the mold. While minimization of %(X) controls uniformity of the coolant moving through the cooling channels by forced
temperature distributions through out the part, %iX) monitors
the maximum temperature difference through the part. To cou-
ple the rms temperature effect with the maximum temperature
difference effect, we define the objective function in this study
as minimization of:
mold cooling channels
f(.X) = vw9i(X) -I- (1 - w)--32(X) (8)
o o
Equation (8) is evaluated when the temperature everywhere
within the part is below a certain specified value (i.e., ejection
temperature) so that the part is sufficiently rigid to be ejected. -y-^—'•x polymer part
Since the objective function ?(,%') is the linear combination of
% (X) and f2(''X) by the weight factor w, the value of w is the
o o
weight assigned to these individual objectives. If the value of
w is chosen as:
w = 1.0, the rms temperature effect, f(.X) = fiC-X)
7,1+7
f 1+/

Fig. 3 A schematic view of cooling channel locations for two-dimen-

w = 0.5, equal weighted, nX) = 0.5C?i(X) + SJCX)) sional mold cooling analysis

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 convection. In order to take heat away efficiently, turbulent flow
through the cooling channels would be preferable. Under these
considerations the heat transfer coefficient he includes the Dit- 0 ^ 2 1-3
tus-Boetler correction (Jeppson, 1976) for forced convective

1 ^' f
heat transfer by turbulent flow in a circular pipe, and is given
by, ^ . ^ '
/i, = 0.023 ^ Re"•* Pr"*, (11) •••-•;•:••••>:• • • ;: ::y;::^: :;

D
which is valid for Remj,, < Re < RCmox, Ren,™ = 1.0 X lO"*,
RCmax = 1.2 X 10' and 0.7 < Pr < 120. Equation (11) indicates
that heat transfer coefficient he is function of five parameters:
heat conductivity of the coolant K^, the heat diffusivity a^, the
kinematic viscosity Uc, the diameter of the cooling channel D,
and the coolant volumetric flow rate Q. In practice, the coolant
is usually pre-specified and hence Kc, etc and v^ are known,
while the volumetric flow rate and the diameter of the cooling to obtain the optimum temperature distribution in a part with
channel are treated as the design variables,
(12)
that must satisfy the process related inequality constraints:
: Q - X^ ReminDmini^c > 0 Given:
•§27+2: 47r RemaxOmaxJ^c " 2 > 0
and
5 "2
O ^
T
Fig. 5 Definition of design variables and cooling channel ordering
Optimization Method. The optimization process is used
the smallest temperature gradient and minimal cooling time
subject to the constraints given by Eqs. (10) and (13) through
(14). The design variables should be chosen as a function of
temperature and cooling time. However, finding an explicit rela-
tionship between the design variables and temperature and cool-
ing time is a formidable and unnecessary task.
The optimal design problem can be formulated as:
D^ax, £>„,,„, p„ Re^ax, Rcmi,,. <5, i>c
(13)
Find: D,L,_M,Q,Hi
MX)
Minimize: w -I- (1

'^27+3 • D - D„i„ > 0

(14)
•i^27+4 • £>„ D > 0

where Drnm and Z)„ax are the minimum and maximum diameters
of a cooling channel allowed in the mold tooling design.
Numerical Implementation
The implementation of the optimization procedure requires
the choice of objective function, design variables and inequality
and equality constraints together with the optimization search
technique, mesh generation, and heat transfer analysis algo-
rithms based on FEA.
110
atPi
steady cyclic period
90
Subject to: { 10' < »« < 1.2 X 10'
0.7 < Pr < 120
JTT Remi„Dn,i„^<: < 6 < 37r RCmax-Dmax'^c
^ Dn,i„ < D < D^ax
The optimization algorithm used to solve the constrained
optimization problem is Powell's conjugate direction method
with penalty function (Reklaitis et al., 1983). This algorithm
uses the direct search method. It uses the history of the iterations
to build up search directions and at the same time avoids degen-
erating to a series of coordinate searches. It is based upon the
model of a quadratic objective function and thus has a theoreti-
cal basis for its convergence. All available computational evi-
dence indicates that Powell's method is at least as reliable as
any other direct search methods and is usually more efficient. To
handle the optimization of a constrained problem, the method of
interior penalty function is added to Powell's algorithm. This
will assure an optimal solution with all constraints satisfied.
However, since the problem is nonlinear and nonconvex, there
is no guarantee of global optimization.

Mesli Generation. Since the optimization scheme may in-

volve repositioning of the cooling channels with every iteration,
until an optimum solution is reached, the remeshing process
must be carried out after each optimization iteration prior to
cooling
cycle time m carrying out the FEA. The mesh generator adopted in this study
is the 2-D quality mesh generator and Delaunay triangulator
(Shewchuk, 1995). The 2-D unstructured mesh system consists
30 of quadratic triangular elements with six nodes. Since the in-
50 100 150 200 250 jected part is very thin, two lines are added along the center
time (sec) lines of the plaque and the rib as the edges to get a finer mesh
Fig. 4 The cyciic, transient temperature at the corner of the junction of grid in the part. For the 3-D mold cooling analysis, an unstruc-
the plaque and the rib, Pi, and at the center of the rib top, P^ tured finite element mesh system of quadratic tetrahedral ele-

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 Table 1 Material properties
Material Density p Heat Capacity C
{J/kg • K)
Steel 7820 460
Polymer 938 1800
Coolant 996 4181
ments with ten nodes is created by the software package Pro/
ENGINEER. A three-point Gaussian quadrature based on trian-
gular coordinates for the 2-D mesh grid and a four-point
Gaussian quadrature based on tetrahedral coordinates for the 3-
D mesh grid are employed to integrate the partial differential
equation with an accuracy of O(h^).
It should be emphasized that, unlike other mold cooling anal-
yses (Chen and Chung, 1994; Chiang et al, 1993; Himasekhar
et al, 1989, 1992), the part and mold are treated as an entire
computational domain which is discretized by a union of finite
elements. Ability to handle non-homogeneous materials is one
of advantages of FEM. Furthermore, the circular cooling chan-
nels are discretized along the circumference and no line-sink
approximation (Chiang et al., 1993; Himasekhar et al., 1992)
is made in the present work.
Finite Element Analysis. Usually an optimization process
takes many iterations to reach the optimum solution and its rate
of convergence is highly influenced by the number of design
variables and the choice of initial points. To proceed efficiently,
a fast FEA algorithm would be essential. The FEA procedure
utilized in the present effort is based on an implicit Galerkin
FEM with a matrix-free JCG iterative solver developed by the
authors (Tang et al., 1996). The time-dependent term is discret-
ized by the ^-method. 9 = j is used in the present work, which
is related to the Crank-Nicolson scheme with second-order ac-
curacy 0{At^) in time. The linear system is symmetric, positive
definite for the mold cooling analysis formulation. The matrix-
vector multiplication is implemented by an element-by-element
strategy without forming the coefficient matrix (matrix-free)
(Tang et al., 1996). This time efficient algorithm enables one
to simulate 2-D and 3-D cyclic, transient heat transfer problems
more efficiently.
It should be emphasized that there is a significant difference
between temperature distributions at end of the first cycle and
at the steady cyclic period due to different initial conditions.
Figure 4 shows that mold cooling is a transient, cyclic phenom-
ena. A steady cyclic solution of temperature is reached after 5 -
6 cooling cycles. In this regard, the objective function is evalu-
ated at the steady cyclic period in this work. When melt temper-
ature in the part is below melt ejection temperature Teje at the
steady cyclic period, the uniformity of temperature distribution
is estimated on the interface between the mold and the part.
Results and Discussions
The methodology presented in this work is utilized to opti-
mize the cooling system design for the "T"-shaped plastic part
shown in Fig. 5. The choice of this case study is based on the
following considerations: there is a sudden change in thickness
in the region of the junction of the plaque and the rib and one-
dimensional heat conduction assumption for the part, reported
in Refs. (Chen and Chung, 1994; Chiang et al., 1993; Hima-
Table 2 Cooling operation conditions
T- • 230.0 "C Dmin 0.635 cm
T • 100.0 "C ^max 1.111 cm
Tc 30.0 "C Qmin 33.0 cm^/sec
Ta 30.0 "C Wrnax 695.0 cm? 1 sec
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Conductivity K Viscosity fi
[Wjm • K) {Pa • s)
36.50
0.25
0.63 8.01 X lO--"
sekhar et al., 1989, 1992), would definitely fail in this region.
Moreover, the region of the junction is more difficult to be
cooled down than other regions for a certain cooling cycle time
and, therefore, it is not easy to obtain a uniform temperature
distribution.
The material properties used for this example are listed in
Table 1. The cooling operation conditions are given in Table
2. In Table 2, Tinj denotes the melt injection temperature, Teje
the part ejection temperature, T^ the coolant temperature which
is assumed as a constant under the 2-D assumption, T„ the air
temperature, and fcyc time for a cooling cycle. The criterion for
mold ejection is given as
< Tejo in the part.
.n\" (15)
where the superscript (« + 1) denotes the (n + 1 )th time level.
Optimization Results. The part dimensions are 12.7 cm in
width and 0.381 cm in wall thickness as well as a rib with 1.27
cm in height and 0.381 cm in thickness. Nine design variables
are chosen, namely, the coolant flow rate Q, the diameter of
cooling channel D, and cooling channel locations L,~L^ and
Hx-H^, as shown in Fig. 5. It should be noted that a symmetrical
geometry is considered in order to reduce the number of design
variables in the optimization scheme, but not in the FEA compu-
tation. A total of seven cooling channels are distributed in the
mold plates.
The objective function 9^(X) is first tested for the weight
factor w. The calculated values of the objective function for
different value of the weight factor are given in Table 3. The
optimal value of the objective function ?(,%') decreases with the
increase of the weight factor and reaches the minimum at w
= 1. Furthermore, the objective function is also examined by
choosing w as a design variable. The numerical result comes
out with w = 1. This result indicates that for this geometric
shape the surface temperature distribution is nearly uniform. In
situation like this low rms value is adequately representative of
uniformly distributed temperature. Therefore, w = 1 demon-
strates that rms objective function supersedes the max minus
min function for conditions that the local variations are not
large. However, when temperature spikes exist then addition
of the difference function assures global uniformity. It can be
concluded that for most part cooling applications the rms objec-
tive function is adequate.
The optimized cooling channel locations and the mesh sys-
tems for the case study are shown in Fig. 6. The initial cooling
channel locations is shown in Fig. 6 ( a ) . The optimal results
with respect to the weight factor w are given in Figs. 6(b)-
( / ) , respectively. From Fig. 6(b), it can be seen that for the
Table 3 Tlie values of objection functions for different weighit factors
Weight Factor Objective Functions
w ^ilA") HX) HX)
0.00 — 0.41616 0.41616
0.25 0.27707 0.43380 0.39461
0.50 0.26783 0.44857 0.35820
0.75 0.26296 0.45326 0.31054
1.00 0.26164 — 0.26164
JUNE 1998, Vol. 120 / 169
 i

(a) (b)

^ s

(c) (d)

(e) (D
Fig. 6 Two-dimensional mesh grids: (a) before optimization and after optimization by objective functions
relating to (ft) w = 0, (c) w = 0.25, (d) w = 0.5, (e) w = 0.75 and {f)w = ^

objective function, 5?(,%°) = %(X), relating to the maximum
temperature difference (w = 0), cooling channels 4, 7 move
toward the sides of the mold and cooling channels 1, 3 toward
the vertical center Une, respectively, to achieve a minimization
of the temperature difference with a higher value of minimum
temperature r„i„. While, for the objective function, 9(.%0 =
?i(iC), relating to the rms temperature effect (w = 1), the
cooling channels are concentrated on the high temperature junc-
tion region of the plaque and the rib to cool down the part
quickly, as shown in Fig. 6(f). The cooling channel location
and mesh grid for different weighted objective functions are
shown in Figs. 6 ( c ) - ( e ) . .
The optimized parameters and the coordinates of the cooling
channels are given in Table 4. It can be seen from Fig. 6 and
Table 4 that cooling channels 2, 5 and 6 are located as close
as possible to the junction region after optimization. Since this
particular region has different cooling requirements than the
rest of the region in the part. Hence, cooling channels 4 and 7
move away from the part surface to account for the overall
uniformity of temperature distribution. Optimized coolant flow
rate for all the values of the weight factor w is always larger
than its initial value and decreases slightly with the increase the
value of weight factor w. It is obvious that the heat transfer
coefficient h^ is proportional to the coolant flow rate 2 ° * , as
seen in Eq. (11). As a result, the cooling rate is increased.
Although the heat transfer coefficient h^ is inversely propor-
tional to the diameter of cooling channel D ' ^ the optimized
cooling channel diameter can be less (w = 0.00-0.50) or
greater (w = 0.75 and 1.00) than its initial value. Moreover,
these values do not approach to the minimum and maximum
due to existence of other constraints on the system. Although
the cooling cycle time is not chosen as an objective function,
it is reduced by 7.84 percent when the cooling system is opti-
mized for this case. It should be stated that a reduction in
cooling cycle time cannot always be guaranteed as a result of
optimal temperature distribution. It depends on the part geome-

Table 4 Results for optimal cooling system design

Cooling Initial Value Optimized Values {x,y) {cm)

Channel {x,y) {cm) w = 0.00 w = 0.25 w = 0.50 w = 0.75 w = 1.00
1 -6.10,-1.35 -2.35,-1.51 -3.52,-1.54 -3.57,-1.54 -3.59,-1.51 -3.59,-1.51
2 0.00,-1.35 0.00,-1.49 0.00,-1.52 0.00,-1.51 0.00,-1.45 0.00,-1.44
3 6.10,-1.35 2.35,-1.51 3.52,-1.54 3.57,-1.54 3.59,-1.51 3.59,-1.51
4 -6.10, 1.35 -6.44, 1.77 -4.99, 2.02 -4.67, 2.01 -4.48, 1.94 -4.40, 1.95
5 -2.03, 1.78 -1.56, 1.26 -1.53, 1.27 -1.50, 1.30 -1.45, 1.30 -1.43, 1.32
6 2.03, 1.78 1.56, 1.26 1.53, 1.27 1.50, 1.30 1.45, 1.30 1.43, 1.32
7 6.19, 1.35 6.44, 1.77 4.99, 2.20 4.67, 2.01 4.48, 1.94 4.40, 1.95
D 0.76 0.73 0.73 0.74 0.79 0.83
Q 200.0 364.2 365.3 364.5 364.0 363.6
t-cyc 25.5 23.5 23.5 23.5 23.5 23.5
^min 38.4 43.2 42.2 41.9 41.8 41.9
T 61.4 52.8 52.2 52.2 52.2 52.5

170 / Vol. 120, JUNE 1998 Transactions of the ASME

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 -1 1 r • • 1 • • 1 1 1' - 1 1

70 initial - 110 initial — -

n w=0.00
0.25
-
••
en—ri— ]C w=0.00
0 25
—
----
0,50 •• 0.50
0.75 - _ 90 0.75 - -
O 60 1.00 - O 1.00 - - -
A
£
3 >-^«<w*^:;i-^ ^555A|Wp.

a> 50 ^ 70
<u
-
1 / s 1
Q. r/^'^-J^''''''''''''"^---'^'*''**'>^^^ a. 11 \1
E E
a> 0)
40 50 1 -

30 30 1 1 1 1 1 1
-5.25 -3.5 -1.75 0 1.75 3.5 5.25
x-coordinate along A-A (cm) -5.25 -3.5 -1.75 0 1.75 3.5 5.25
x-coordinate along C-C (cm)
Fig. 7 Temperature distribution on tlie bottom surface of tlie part (sec-
tion A-A) Fig. 9 Temperature distribution on tlie center of the plaque (section
C-C)

try and initial conditions. Temperature distributions on the dif-

ferent locations for various weight factors w are shown in Figs.
7-10. These figures show that small differences are observed
for different weight factors w except w = 0. Figures 7 and
8 show that optimized cooling system not only significantly
uniformizes the temperature distributions but also reduces the
temperature differences in sections along A-A and B-B. From
Fig. 9, the temperature distributions in the section along C-C
(inside the part) is also improved except the junction region of
the rib and the plaque. There are two important concepts for
mold cooling analysis. First, cooling cycle time is always an
important issue for temperature distributions, noting that the
temperature would approach the same everywhere in the part
if the cooling time was long enough. In practice, short cooling
cycle time is always expected to achieve a high product rate.
Second, since the conductivity of polymer is very low, the
junction region of the rib and the plaque is more difficult to be
cooled down than other regions at a specific ejection tempera-
ture (100.0°C in this case). Therefore, it is physically impossi-
ble to obtain an idealized uniform temperature distributions
in the section along C-C for a given cooling cycle time. The
temperature distribution after optimization in the section along
D-D is about ICC lower than the initial one, as shown in Fig.
10. It implies that optimized cooling system enables to cool
down the part faster. The temperature contours for different
cases are shown in Fig. 11. The temperature contours are plotted
from 34°C to 60°C with an increment of 2°C.
There are several ways to define the uniformity of tempera-
ture distribution. Here, we use statistical measure for tempera-
ture distribution at finite element nodes on the interface between
the mold and part to account for the uniformity of the tempera-
ture. With Xp being the number of finite element nodes in a
temperature range and Np the total number of finite element
nodes on the interface, the uniformity of temperature distribu-
tion is defined as,
Uniformity = 100% X - ^ (16)
The uniformity of temperature distribution is presented in Fig.
12. Initially, the temperature difference Zl^ax - T^^ on the inter-
face is 22.94°C ranged from 38.38°C to 61.37°C. After optimiza-
tion, the temperature difference becomes about 10.0°C, as
shown in Table 4. From Fig. 12, it can be seen that 78 percent-
88 percent temperature values are fallen into the temperature

1 1 1 1 1 1 1

70 - initial .
. . . — 1 1 — . - - w=0.00
1 1 0,25
0,50
\ 0.75
O 60 1--
o 1.00
s

0) 50
Q.
E
0) / \
40 -

1 1 1 1.. 1 1 1
30
-7 -5.25 -3,5 -1.75 0 1.75 3.5 5.25 7 0 0.2 0,4 0.6 0.8 1 1.2
x-coordinate along B-B (cm) y-coordinate along D-D (cm)
Fig. 8 Temperature distribution on the top surface of the plaque (sec- Fig. 10 Temperature distribution on the vertical surface of the rib (sec-
tion B-B) tion D-D)

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 (a) (b)

(c) (d)

(e) (0
Fig. 11 Isothermal lines for (a) initial case (b) w = 0.00 (c) w = 0.25 {d) w = 0.50 (e) w = 0.75 and (f)
w = 1.00

range between 45-49°C for w = 0.25-1.0. These results show example, 2-D sections that represent the thickest section of the
that significant uniformity in temperature distribution is ob- part, most thickness transitions, comers and bends in the part,
tained due to the optimization process. rib sections, etc. can be chosen. In this section we show the
The Powell's conjugate gradient direction method with pen- effect of a hole added to the "T"-shaped" part. There are two
alty function takes about 750 iterations to reach the optimum reasons why the 3-D mold cooling analysis is independently
solution for the nine design variables. done by following the 2-D optimization procedure. First, a flex-
ible adaptive mesh generator for the 3-D solid model, which
Three-dimensional Cooling Analysis, The 2-D design op- can easily interface with our code, is not available. Second,
timization methodology determines the cooling channel loca- although the 3-D FEA code adopts a more efficient algorithm,
tions in reference to the part in a computationally efficient man- 3-D simulation may still consume lot of CPU time when optimi-
ner. However, most practical parts are inherently 3-D. The util- zation procedure is coupled.
ity of the 2-D cooling line design optimization can be enhanced
and extended to more complex 3-D parts by suitably selecting The optimization resuhs obtained from the 2-D simulation
a cross-section of the part using some specified guidelines. For are applied to the 3-D mold cooling analysis of the "T"-shaped
plastic part. The cooling layout is shown in Fig. 13. The 3-D
mold cooling analysis is described in details by Tang et al.
(1996). The part dimensions are 12.7 cm in width, 10.16 cm
in length, and 0.38 cm in wall thickness as well as a rib with
max value: 1.27 cm in width, 10.16 cm in length, and 0.38 cm in thickness.
• initial 33.3 A molded-in hole is added in the plaque to examine the unsym-
a H" = 0.00 36.2 metric cooling effect. A full 3-D mesh system of 20630 ele-
mw = 0.25 78.7
mw = 0.50 ments with 30640 nodes is generated by the Pro/ENGINEER
82.0
mw = 0.75 85.8 software system.
mw = 1.00 88.0 The 3-D results of temperature distributions on the interface
of the mold and the polymer part for w = 0.75 at the steady
cyclic period before and after optimization are given in Figs.
14 and 15 for both sides of the part. The temperature range is
31.99-56.47°C. Red color denotes the highest temperature and
blue color the lowest temperature. The same temperature scale
is used for all the temperature contour plots in order to compare
the results obtained before and after optimization. For the case
before optimization, as shown in Figs. 14(a) and 15(a), the
45 49 53
4-
57 65
large difference of temperature distribution is observed by the
difference in colors. The high temperature regions are those at
temperature range (^) the two comers of the junction of the plaque and rib on the rib
Fig. 12 The uniformity of temperature distributions on the interface of side and between the cooling channels on the plaque side. After
the mold and part by two-dimensional simulation the cooling system is optimized, temperature distribution be-

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 Fig. 13 Cooling channel layout on the 3-D mold cavity and core

comes more uniform, as shown in Figs. \4(b) and 15(b). The

temperature range is 31.93-45.33°C. The temperature differ-
ence 13.41°C is higher than the 2-D result. This is affected by
the molded-in hole. Furthermore, these figures can be used to
explain why cooling channels 2, 5 and 6 move close to the

(b)

Fig. 15 Temperature contours (a) before optimization and (b) after opti-
mization on the plaque side for w = 0.75 by 3-D mold cooling analysis

plaque-rib junction region and cooling channels 1 and 3 move

toward the vertical center axis.
The calculated optimal cooling cycle time is 20.0 seconds in
the steady cyclic period for this case. Comparing the cooling
cycle time with that obtained by 2-D simulation, a less cooling
cycle time is taken due to the 3-D and molded-in hole effects.
The computer memory and computing time required are 24.5
Megabytes and 33.4 minutes. In a typical cooling cycle, the
JCG solver needs only 32-39 iterations to converge at each
time step.

Conclusions
An optimization methodology for computer-aided cooling
system design of injection mold tooling is presented in this
work. The results are the optimum cooling channel locations and
processing conditions for given part geometries. The numerical
results show that Powell's conjugate gradient direction method
with penalty function and the matrix-free algorithm of Galerkin
FEM with the JCG is efficient, robust and practical. Significant
uniformity in temperature distribution is obtained as a result
of the optimization process. It was also demonstrated that for
applications similar to what was presented here the rms objec-
tive function is adequate in generating uniform as possible tem-
perature distribution. This work is extended to a mold cooling
system design for a 3-D injection molding part using critical 2-
D cross-section of the part.

(b) Acknowledgments
Fig. 14 Temperature contours (a) before optimization and {b) after opti- The work was supported through a grant made available to
mization on the rib side for w = 0.75 by 3-D mold cooling analysis the Design and Manufacturing Institute (DMI) at Stevens Insti-

Journal of Mechanical Design JUNE 1998, Vol. 120 / 173

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 tute of Technology by the Advanced Research Projects Agency
(ARPA) (Grant No. MDA 972-94-1-0013). This support is
greatly appreciated.
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Transactions of the ASME