Rapid tooling for injection molding inserts

Injection molding is a widespread manufacturing technology for mass production of polymeric parts. Conventionally, fused polymers are injected at high pressure in a metallic mold. This tool is typically characterized by high manufacturing costs and times, making the injection molding process not affordable for small batches or prototypal applications. Additive Manufacturing represents a practical solution to cut down tooling costs and times of molds and inserts. In this work, FDM (Fused Deposition Technology) has been considered as candidate technology to produce polymeric inserts for injection molding. Considering the commercially available filaments for FDM, a PEI (Polyetherimide) grade has been selected as tooling material for the injection of a part made of Polypropylene. The PEI grade represents a good compromise between manufacturing costs and thermo-mechanical properties required for the application. The PEI grade has been characterized with DSC (Differential Scanning Calorimetry), DMA (Dynamical Mechanical Analysis) and compression tests. The data gathered were used to set up 2D simplified thermo-mechanical finite element analyses, simulating the response of the PEI inserts subjected to repeated injection molding cycles. The simulations confirmed that the PEI grade is a good candidate tooling material but the progressive tool heating could lead to prolonged cooling time of the Polypropylene part. Finally, some PEI inserts were 3D printed with FDM and tested in a real injection molding machine injecting POM. In total, 20 POM parts have been injected correctly without relevant damaging of the PEI inserts.