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First Prize in APAC Region: KOPLA
Cooling Time Reduction for Thermostat Housing
Industry: Automotive
Team Leader: Daekyung Kim
Team Members: Yong-gil Lee, Seonhee An, Haekook Sung
Company/Team Introduction:
KOPLA is a leading supplier of Engineering Plastics Resin based in Korea. It has been developing and supplying the composite materials for the automotive industry since 1997.
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Story Overview/Challenge:
High-Temperature Nylon (HTN) is used in the manufacture of automotive thermostat housings. However, the HTN material requires much higher mold and melt temperatures than typical plastics. In this case, KOPLA was faced with the challenges to reduce the cooling time to help its customer shorten the cycle time while maintaining sufficient cooling time to avoid part failure due to high temperature at the same time.
Solution:
KOPLA used Moldex3D to conduct several optimizations to reduce the required cooling time. Through Moldex3D, KOPLA could optimize cooling channel design by increasing the length of some baffles at particular regions. Moldex3D simulation results also helped KOPLA evaluate the effects of the process changes in cooling flow rate and mold, mold insert, and cooling temperatures as well as different mold insert materials on the required cooling time before finally obtaining the optimal design that could reduce the cooling time from 85 s to 28 s.
Results/Benefits:
- Optimized cooling layout design, process parameters, mold insert material
- Increased cooling efficiency
- Reduced cooling time by 67%
Product Used:
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