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Review
. 2022 Apr 19;14(9):1646.
doi: 10.3390/polym14091646.

Analysis and Advances in Additive Manufacturing as a New Technology to Make Polymer Injection Molds for World-Class Production Systems

Adrian Benitez Lozano  1   2 , Santiago Henao Álvarez  1 , Carlos Vargas Isaza  1 , Wilfredo Montealegre-Rubio  2
Affiliations
Review

Analysis and Advances in Additive Manufacturing as a New Technology to Make Polymer Injection Molds for World-Class Production Systems

Adrian Benitez Lozano et al. Polymers (Basel). .

Abstract

The currently growing demand for metallic and polymeric products has undoubtedly changed the rules of manufacturing, enabling customers to more functionally define their products based on their needs. Nowadays, a new technique for rapid tooling, Additive Manufacturing (AM), can create customized products with more complex geometries and short life cycles (flexibility) in order to keep up with the new variables imposed by the manufacturing environment. In the last two decades, the migration from subtractive manufacturing to AM has materialized such products with reduced costs and cycle times. AM has been recently promoted to develop polymer molds for product manufacturing. This paper reviews the main findings in the literature concerning polymer molds created by AM compared to conventional (metal) molds obtained by subtractive manufacturing. Information about specific topics is scarce or nonexistent, for example, about the characterization of the most commonly injected materials and molds used in this type of technology, their mechanical properties (part and mold), designs for all types of geometries, and costs. These aspects are addressed in this literature review, highlighting the advantages of this alternative manufacturing process, which is considered a desirable technology worldwide.

Keywords: injection molding; mold additive manufacturing; mold characterization; polymer molds; rapid tooling; subtractive manufacturing.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Chronology of the most common subtractive and additive manufacturing techniques for polymer/metal molds.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Network of countries based on co-authorship.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Network of keywords retrieved from the literature search.
Figure 4
Figure 4
(a) Pressure field and temperatures in a refrigeration system. (b) Cooling system by means of baffles.
Figure 5
Figure 5
Solid models of cavity insert and cores (a) without cooling channels, (b) with conventional cooling channels, (c) with parallel conformal cooling channels, and (d) with series conformal cooling channels.
Figure 6
Figure 6
Ishikawa diagram of different sources of crack initiation and catastrophic failure in polymer RTIM.
Figure 7
Figure 7
Cost curves of IM, AM for production, and AM for tooling.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

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