Grant: CCI Applied Research and Development Grants

voestalpine is a world-leading steel and technology company with its North America Additive Manufacturing Centre of Excellence (vAMC) located in Mississauga, Ontario. vAMC applies metal Additive Manufacturing (AM) technology, commonly known as 3D printing, to design and manufacture conformally cooled tooling (CCT) for die casting and plastic injection moulding processes. CCTs have complex coolant flow trajectories that closely conform to the shape of a given casted or moulded part, thereby substantially enhancing the cooling performance of the mould. In general, better cooling leads to improvements in part quality and reduction of cycle time, making CCTs highly attractive to vAMC’s potential customers. Although CCTs have promising potential, their adoption is hindered by the lack of inspection and validation methods prior to live trial or usage by customers. Intricate cooling channel geometries offer great functional benefits, but often make it impossible to inspect with existing non-destructive methods. Visual inspection via borescope cameras cannot reach all sections of the cooling lines; and imaging methods such as Radiography and CT require expensive equipment yet cannot penetrate thick cross sections of steel commonly found in CCTs. vAMC is sometimes challenged by potential customers who are skeptical about CCTs’ ability to deliver on the promised efficiency gains based solely on computer simulations. To help overcome this challenge, the Mohawk College Additive Manufacturing Innovation Centre (AMIC) and voestalpine will collaborate to create a novel validation system for CCTs. This project builds on AMIC’s long-standing applied research expertise in AM as well as seven years of existing partnership with voestalpine. The system we develop in this exciting project will help vAMC advance CCT technology to a more mature state. The end result will not only grow sales and market share for voestalpine, but also strengthen Canada’s domestic tool & die supply chain.