Grant: Applied Research and Development Grants - Level 1

This project, in partnership with Mohawk College, aims to explore the advantages and the limitations of conformal coolingchannels in mould inserts manufactured by direct metal laser sintering (DMLS/3d metal printing) technology. Dynaplas,located in Toronto, is a custom injection moulder of high temperature engineered thermoplastic resins used in high performance applications for automotive safety, braking, engine, transmission, thermal, and fuel components. Ourcustomers are located in all global regions Asia, India, MX, South and North (predominantly MX) America.To remain competitive at home, due to higher energy costs, and globally, due to lower labour, the conformal coolingpotential is game changing technology that will allow Dynaplas to remain cost competitive and continue as a metal to plastic,lightweighting innovator.Originally set up as a designer and builder of injection moulds, in 1985 Dynaplas added injection moulding to its capabilitiesand now has 54 machines ranging from 13 to 500T. Many of the parts moulded at Dynaplas were originally designed inmetal, aluminum or thermoset and, as having evolved into thermoplastic, usually require certain design concessions such asvarying, non-uniform wallstock thicknesses for strength. In addition, many of these parts do not have straight, rather complexsurface profiles. These non-uniform conditions result in localized hot spots into which conventional cooling lines (straight vsfollowing surface profile) cannot be placed and subsequently lead to dimensional variation, longer moulding cycle times aswell as longer program lead-times to bring a part to its desired engineered tolerances.Similar to what design freedom injection moulding can bring to a traditional metal component, conformal cooling via DMLSpresents an opportunity of design freedom to place coolant lines in these hot spots in order to promote temperatureuniformity and dimensional consistency. Over the last four years, Dynaplas has investigated industry trends with Europeanand American mould builders, have met with machine manufacturers of the DMLS equipment and, in the last six months,have had numerous discussions with Mohawk College on their additive manufacturing capabilities with respect to DMLS. AsDMLS is a relatively new technology, creating and printing optimal cooling line geometry needs to be developed.