Formulation of the size and position of spiral cooling channel in plastic injection mold based on Fluent simulation results

This paper presents a formula based on simulation results using Fluent software to determine the size and position of a spiral cooling channel in a plastic injection mold that yields the maximum effect on the ratio of product cooling rates and coolant pumping energy (CR/PE). In this formulation, there are 5 simulation steps performed: Re, Ac/Ap, Lc/Lp, rca/rp and kmold. The formulat was developed by doing a step-by-step optimization using the CR/PE parameter on the simulation results by considering uniformity of product temperature during cooling (U). By performing mathematical processing on the optimization results, we obtained a targeted formula with product dimension and mold thermal conductivity as entry variables. The validity of the formulat is supported by the fact that it was developed from simulation results that have fulfilled convergence criterion, a high percentage correction factor (above 97%) for all interpolations performed and a good level (approximately 96%) in the uniformity.