Conclusion

This article uses three examples to demonstrate that polymer additive manufacturing can be used to produce tools for small and medium production runs in injection molding, thermoforming and extrusion. The choice of technology, the choice of material, the design and printing of the tooling are all important stages in the success of polymer additive manufacturing tooling. Tooling must be optimized to make the most of the possibilities offered by additive manufacturing. Taking into account the challenges associated with the use of polymer materials and additive manufacturing, tooling will be less conductive than conventional metal tooling, and compliance with tolerances will be poorer than with machining. The economic analysis carried out for extrusion and thermoforming validates the economic interest of the technology: polymer additive manufacturing tools are less expensive than those obtained...