As mould makers and manufacturers worldwide look forward to reducing overall costs, aluminium has made it to the forefront regarding tooling and injection moulding processes. After conducting thorough research on the overall design, quality, and unfilled types, it has been observed that aluminium is a better solution than steel in most cases. In most cases, aluminium is considered a better option than steel for producing high-grade aluminium injection moulds.
As steel is being used in injection moulding in most traditional moulding presses, it has restricted the moulders to a specific cycle time corner. This implies that there remains no possible way to reduce the overall cycle times rather than using high-grade aluminium injection moulds. Moreover, there remains no guarantee that the overall cycle time will improve. Some experts also explain that lowering the melting temperature to the level below the recommended mark by the manufacturers could result in the opening up of the moulder.
Choosing the Right Aluminum Alloy
Aluminum has long been considered the top material for prototype tooling. This is because of the overall availability, cost benefits offered by the same, dependability, and ease of machining for thousands of slots out there. In the modern era, aluminium alloy has also entered into the domain of production tooling for ensuring the benefits of cost-savings along with cycle time improvements, polishing performance, optimized process efficiency, and machining. Most of the moulders and mould-makers out there have restricted their experience with using aluminium tooling. It has turned out favourable for some, while not the same for all.
When you are choosing the aluminium alloy for your injection moulding projects, there are some aspects that you are expected to look into. In comparison to P20 steel, aluminium is supposed to feature the following:
- Around 4-5 times improved rate of thermal heat transfer. With the assurance of enhanced thermal conductivity, the number and position of the water lines tend to be less critical. This allows for the effective placement of extra ejector pins wherever required.
- Aluminum demonstrates improved productivity of around 20-30 per cent regarding the overall cycle time saving.
- Aluminium features special polishing as well as machining characteristics. With high-tensile aluminium materials or alloys, the resulting machining ratings are relatively higher –as much as eight times as compared to steel.
- There is NE comparededt to aluminium alloys for stress relieving or heat treatment. All of these activities are carried out during the manufacturing process.
It is important to note that as the aluminium alloy is lighter in weight and ensures improved machining compared to its steel counterparts, all aluminium alloys cannot be regarded as equal in terms of overall performance. Look out for the best one!