Metal 3D Printing for Conformal Cooling

3D Printing Conformal Cooling

Conformal cooling offers an efficient thermal management in the industrial tooling, increasing productivity by 50%. At LUSHI, our expert design the cooling channels and manufacture it using metal 3D printing to enhance your production and part quality.

Your 24/7 Instant Quote:
Start a new injection molding quote

STP | STEP | SLDPRT | IPT | PRT | SAT files

All uploads are secure and confidential.

What is
Conformal Cooling

The concept of conformal cooling involves incorporating unique cooling channels into the plastic injection molding tool. In order to gaining more efficiency and uniform cooling, the cooling channels should be specially created to meet part shapes. In comparison, conformal cooling of metal 3D printing can bring huge advantages, the cycle times of injection molding could be shourten by at least 30%, even up to 70%.

Controlling heat is essential for all plastic injection molding tasks. In a typical mold tool, coolant circulates in linear channels throughout the mold to manage heat. These routes, which are created by drilling straight holes, have some drawbacks for shaping intricate designs. At LUSHI, we been working on research and development to investigate conformal cooling with metal 3D printing in order to enhance this procedure.

Advantages of 3D printing conformal cooling system

Enhanced Cooling Efficiency

Conformal cooling enhances productivity by creating custom channels that closely follow mold contours, optimizing heat dissipation. This reduces cooling time in industrial tooling, leading to faster cycles and improved efficiency, ultimately boosting productivity and part quality.

Shorter Production Cycles

Conformal channels ensure uniform temperature distribution, reducing cooling times and significantly speeding up manufacturing cycles. This enhanced efficiency leads to cost savings, higher throughput, and enables producers to meet demand more effectively.

Improved Mold Longevity

Uniform cooling reduces thermal stress on molds, which can extend their lifespan. Less frequent temperature fluctuations prevent premature wear, reducing maintenance costs and downtime associated with mold repairs or replacements.

Enable Complex Geometries

Complex cooling channels that would be difficult or impossible to create with traditional machining techniques can now be created thanks to 3D printing. This adaptability enables performance optimization through specialized designs made to fit particular mold specifications.

Reduced Warping & Defects

Optimal cooling channels enable consistent temperatures throughout the part, reducing material warpage and distortion. This results in improved part tolerances, higher quality, and enhanced surface finishes by minimizing defects like short shots and flow markings, ensuring greater precision and consistency in production.

Energy Efficiency

Conformal cooling optimize heat transfer by efficiently distributing cooling across the mold, reducing the energy required for each cycle. By shortening cooling times, they lower energy consumption, minimize equipment strain, and cut operational costs, resulting in long-term savings and enhanced sustainability.

Why metal 3D printing
used in Conformal Cooling?

Parts with complex designs and internal structures, such as conformal cooling channels for custom shapes, are ideal for additive manufacturing, where manufacturing time and cost per part are not necessarily dependent on geometric complexity.

Due to the limitations of traditional manufacturing methods, cooling channels are often limited to straight lines. The more complicated the geometry, the harder it is to achieve. Metal 3D printed conformal cooling channels that fit closely to the shape of the injection molded part, are the best way to achieve uniform cooling. This increases turbulence in the coolant flow, resulting in better surface quality without deformation of the plastic end product.

At LUSHI, our team takes advantage of EOS M290 platforms to realize our conformal cooling solution, which is proven to be effective and practicable with 30% - 70% higher productivity in practical production.

Our EOS M290 for Manufacturing Conformal Cooling

Improve efficiency up to 50%

LUSHI enhances injection molding efficiency by up to 50% through conformal cooling, employing 3D printing to overcome the shape complexities. This method optimizes cooling channels to enhance cycle times and reduce defects, crucial for boosting productivity and cost-effectiveness. By integrating advanced cooling designs, LUSHI enables manufacturers to achieve superior part quality and consistency, meeting stringent production demands with innovative solutions.

LUSHI delivers innovative conformal cooling solution from design to manufacturing

From design to manufacturing, LUSHI helps customers with their innovative conformal cooling solutions. Having produced injection molds for over 15 years, LUSHI combines a wealth of knowledge with state-of-the-art technology to improve cooling effectiveness. By optimizing heat dissipation during the molding process, their expertise in conformal cooling lowers cycle times and improves product quality. Through the utilization of sophisticated 3D printing methods and specialized industrial equipment, they customize solutions to fulfill the particular requirements of every project.

As a leading manufacturing partner, LUSHI focuses on next-generation solutions in both 3D printing and industrial tooling. Our extensive expertise in injection molding allows us to deliver effective solutions for designing cooling channels that enhance heat transfer. By optimizing these channels, we improve cooling efficiency, resulting in shorter production cycles and higher-quality parts. This approach helps our clients achieve increased operational efficiency, reduced manufacturing costs, and improved product performance.

Additive Manufacturing Conformal Cooling in The Industrial Tooling

Overall Printing Solution

The whole component of mold insert will be printed at one time, this gives uniform material distribution in the component and more stable performance, but with Longer timing for printing and higher cost.

Grafting Printing Solution

The mold insert is built in two separate processes. The insert base is processed using traditional CNC manufacturing, and the other part, which contains the cooling channels, is made using 3D printing. To combination these two parts in one using grafting technology. The pro is the lower cost and fast process.

3D Printing Conformal Cooling

Conformal cooling offers an efficient thermal management in the industrial tooling, increasing productivity by 50%. At LUSHI, our expert design the cooling channels and manufacture it using metal 3D printing to enhance your production and part quality.

Your 24/7 Instant Quote:
Start a new injection molding quote

What is
Conformal Cooling