Conclusion

Laser powder bed melting (LPBF) technology optimizes and homogenizes the thermal regulation of injection tooling, thereby increasing both the productivity and quality of injected parts. The various steps involved in producing a mold insert using additive manufacturing were presented. Each of these steps is key to the success of the tooling produced, and must be carried out with care: it is important to take into account all the particularities of additive manufacturing processes right from the tooling design stage. The benefits of this technology have been demonstrated in a number of industrial cases, which have been used to illustrate the Conformal Cooling approach throughout this article. In order for additive manufacturing to be systematically considered for tool design, preliminary studies need to be simplified to enable manufacturers to assess the benefits of additive manufacturing...