In: Mechanical Engineering
2) What does cooling mold temperatures accomplish?
For simplicity, we can ignore any heat loss due to elevated mold temperature. This leaves us with three relatively simple tasks to quantify the energy flow and estimate cooling requirements, assuming a traditional water-circulation cooling system:
1. . Understand the thermal properties of polymers and learn the method for calculating energy values and flow for both amorphous and semi-crystalline materials.
2. Calculate the (cooling) energy that must be removed from the molded parts to change the temperature from the processing (melt) temperature to a safe ejection temperature.
3. Using the cooling energy requirement as a starting place, determine the diameter and length of cooling circuits, the coolant ?T value, and the coolant flow rate required to be turbulent and to remove the required amount of heat (energy)