MANUFACTURE OF THE INJECTION MOLD WITH THE DIRECT METALLIC RAPID TOOLING SYSTEM

摘要

The objective of this paper is to develop a Direct Metallic Rapid Tooling System for manufacturing the injectio n mold. A 2.5KW Nd-YAG laser sy stem, a metallic powder feeder system, a lateral powder nozzle system, a PC-based motion controller, and a shielding gas supply system are incorporated for the hardware archit ecture in t he pro posed RT Syst em. The critical process parameters influencing the dimensional accuracy of the RT part s were analyzed with Taguchi's experimental design. From the ANOVA (Analysis of Variance) comput ational results, the factors "Scanning speed" and "Tool path offset" are the influential factors affecting the layer thickness of RT parts. From the experimenta 1 results, the proposed RT system could fabricate the mold inserts. After finishing the mold inserts and assembling the plenary injection mold, the injection molding machine can generate ABS plast ic parts wi th excellent quality.