Study on an Optimized Configuration of Conformal Cooling Channel by Branching Law

Since the 3D printing technology was applied to metallic materials, the conformal cooling channel has been widely utilized for injection mold with a higher cooling efficiency. The conformal cooling channel provides higher degree of freedom in shape and size. It is more effective to apply it to convex core accumulating more heat than the concave side. However, there has not been a standard design method for the conformal cooling channel. Depending upon channel design, the cooling efficiency would not be improved. Sometimes dead flow zones could be made in the channel. Currently every engineer makes the cooling channel design of his own. In this work, we proposed an automated optimum design method for the conformal cooling channel. In the proposed design method, whole product surface is divided into smaller domains with equal thermal energy by Voronoi diagram algorithm. Then cooling channels are installed along the centers of the domains by a binary branching algorithm. The objective of the optimization was the minimization of the product surface temperature deviation. The cooling channels are branching out over the product surface through the evolutionary steps until the objective was satisfied. The injection molding CAE analysis was done by Moldflow, and the optimization by PIAnO. The sample product was an eye-glass lens product.