Utilization of Direct Metal Laser Sintering in Injection Mold Design JAN NAVRATIL, MICHAL STANEK, STEPAN SANDA, MIROSLAV MANAS, DAVID MANAS, ALES MIZERA, MARTIN BEDNARIK Tomas Bata University in Zlin nam. T. G. Masaryka 5555, 760 01 Zlin CZECH REPUBLIC [email protected]http://www.ft.utb.cz Abstract: - The aim of this research paper is to design two variants of cooling systems (cavities) for an injection mold. Both systems are designed to be used on the same injection mold for producing the same product. The difference is in the manufacturing technology itself. The first variant was made by conventional methods of machining and the second variant was made by combination of conventional methods and unconventional rapid prototyping technology Direct Metal Laser Sintering (DMLS). It was dealt with design of the universal injection mold frame and both cooling systems for an existing product in the first part of this research paper. In the second part were both designs compared by mechanical analysis and their influence on final product by flow analysis. Last part is focused on economical evaluation of both designs. Key-Words: - Rapid Prototyping, Direct Metal Laser Sintering, Injection Molding, Analysis, Mold, Part 1 Introduction Rapid prototyping belongs among modern manufacturing technologies, where the resulting product is made by adding material layer-by-layer, unlike subtracting technologies (milling and drilling), where the resulting product is made by removing material [1-3, 13-19]. Fig.1 Manufacturing technologies There are several rapid prototyping technologies based on the adding material, the main differences are in a used material and product building technologies. Between this technologies belong, for example; stereolithography (SL), laminated object manufacturing (LOM), fused deposition modeling (FDM), selective laser sintering (SLS) and direct metal laser sintering (DMLS) [4-15]. All these technologies are based on creation of real product directly from 3D CAD data in a few hours; this results in speeding up process planning and tooling design, because of possibility to provide a real product at an earlier design stage [1, 4, 5, 21]. Laser sintering is one of the leading commercial processes for rapid fabrication of functional prototypes and tools. The process creates solid three-dimensional objects by bonding powdered materials using laser energy [6, 23, 24]. Direct metal laser sintering (DMLS) allows creating fully functional metal part without using any tools and without any shape restrictions. The parts produced by this technology have mechanical properties fully comparable with cast or machined parts. Benefits of this technology increases with shape complexity; that means the more complex part, the more economical the process becomes [9- 11, 17-23]. Principle of this technology is based on melting very thin layers of metal powder. The process begins by applying first layer onto a steel platform and melting required contour. Then is another layer applied and process continuous until the whole part is made. Minimal thickness of each layer is 20 µm. It is also necessary to use supporting structure, which is applied simultaneously with base material. The supports are necessary because the powder itself is not sufficient enough to hold in place the liquid phase created by melting required contour [11, 16-22]. Once the part is created then it goes through some finishing operations including support removal, shot peening and polishing. Between advantages belong besides shape complexity and Recent Researches in Circuits and Systems ISBN: 978-1-61804-108-1 273
6
Embed
Utilization of Direct Metal Laser Sintering in Injection ... · Key-Words: - Rapid Prototyping, Direct Metal Laser Sintering, Injection Molding, Analysis, Mold, Part . 1 Introduction
This document is posted to help you gain knowledge. Please leave a comment to let me know what you think about it! Share it to your friends and learn new things together.
Transcript
Utilization of Direct Metal Laser Sintering in Injection Mold Design
JAN NAVRATIL, MICHAL STANEK, STEPAN SANDA, MIROSLAV MANAS,