CAE DS - Mould design

Mould and Die Basic Structure

Tampere University of technology - Tuula Hook

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Injection moulding moulds and high pressure die casting dies are fabricated to a Standard mould standard
mould set. The standard mould set consists of two clamp plates, two cavity set
plates, guiding elements between them, an optional back plate, two risers and an
ejector set. Ejector set consists of an ejector base plate, an ejector retaning plate and an
optional set of buffer plates. Guiding elements are guide pillars, guide sleeves and
centering sleeves in each corner of the mould. (See images.)

Ejector set

Image 1. Components in a standard mould

package.

Ejector

Centering
sleeve

Buffer plate

Image 2. Mould structure details. Left: Guide elements. Right: Ejector set components. Ejectors are
fastened between the two plates.

Mould is divided into two halves: fixed and movable. Movable half consists of one Fixed and movable
clamping plate, the ejector set, risers and one cavity plate. The fixed half consists of one mould half
clamping plate and one cavity plate. Guide pillars and guide sleeves lock the two halves
together in vertical and horizontal directions. High pressure die casting and injection
moulding machines have a mould closing mechanism, which press the mould halves
tightly together.

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 CAE DS - Mould design

The basic functional parts in a HPDC die or injection molding mould are:
Cavity and cores (fixed and moving cores), which give the shape to the casting
or molding
Runner system, which leads the molten raw material from the machine injection
I shot system to the cavities
Core moving mechanisms, which will move the movable cores in in the be-
ginning of the machine cycle and out along with the mould/die opening
Ejecting mechanism, which removes the part fromt the cavity together with the
machine ejection system
Cooling/tempering channels, which keep the thermal balance during moulding
or casting operations

The mould/die functional parts act together with the casting/moulding machine. In the Mould cavity and
machine there are parts for dosing the raw material into the mould/die, parts for parting surface
producing the core moving forces (electrical, hydraulic or pneumatic), parts for producing
the forces for ejection (electrical or hydraulic) and parts for circulating the cooling liquid
inside the mould cooling/tempering channels. The system for circulating the cooling
liquid may also be separate equipments like HPDC tempering devices.
The space inside the mould in which the part is shaped is called a mould cavity. The
surface between the fixed and movable halves is called a parting surface. As the first
chaise the parting surface should be planar like in the image below. Only if it is abso-
lutely necessary to make stepped or shaped parting surface, this option could be taken
into consideration. The two mould halves need to fit tightly together. Otherwise the high
pressure inside the mould cavity during moulding operation (or casting shot) will extrude
the moulding material to the parting surface. It is more difficult to produce surface
flatness to shaped or stepped surfaces than to planar surfaces. It is the surface flatness,
which does the tightness between the mould halves.

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Image 3. Left: Mould fixed side with the cavity. The space inside which the part is shaped, is also
called a cavity. Right: Mould movable side with a core. The surface between these mould halves is
called a parting surface.

A core is any extension in the mould. There are two types of cores: fixed and moving. I Fixed cores Note
that an extension in the mould is a recession or hole in the part. The fixed cores
can be either separated parts or just machined extensions in the mould cavity plates
(See image next page.). The part fastens around a core, because all injection mouldable
plastics and high pressure die castable metals shrink during cooling. It is practical to
place the part into the mould so that as many cores as possible are located in the
moving side and as much of the cavity as possible in the fixed side like in the image
above. This arrangement fastens the moulded part to the moving side and makes it
possible to eject it in the right time.

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Separated core

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Image 4. Different fixed core types: a
separated core, a core pin and a machined
I core.

As you can see in the image above, all cores are prepared with angled vertical surfaces. Draft angle
None of the vertical surfaces is perpendicular to the parting surface. The angle is called a
draft. All moulded part or high pressure die casting vertical surfaces must be prepared
with a draft angle. Otherwise it is not possible to eject the casting out of the mould. The
angle size depends on the material of the part and in the case of injection moulded parts
also on the surface texture. The deeper shapes there are in the texture the larger draft
angle is needed. The draft angle in the outer and inner surfaces takes an opposite
direction.
The parting surface is set to the line in the part where the draft direction changes. In the Different parting
following example (Image 5 below) the part is cup -shaped and the parting surface is surface and draft
placed to the outer corner of the cup opening. If there was a collar around the cup, the angle options
parting surface would locate in the collar edge. If the part is flat there are two basic
options: Place the parting surface to the middle of the part or on the other side of the part.
The selection of the parting surface location has an influence on which corners in the part
are rounded and which are not. (See images.)

Image 5. Draft angles in a part. Pay attention to

the draft angles in a holed boss. The wall thickness
Inner and outer surfaces enlarges from top to bottom.
in a holed boss need a draft to
opposite directions

Image 6. The same shapes in a mould movable and fixed half The draft angle enables the part ejection.
If the surfaces were perpendicular to the parting surface, the ejection would need to be forceful and
most likely there would be drag marks on the part surface. The corner between the part shapes and the
parting surface is rounded in the movable (core) half The corner in the fixed mould half is sharp. This
will mean that the same corners in the part must also be rounded or sharp.

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Image 7. Parting surface in a cup-shaped part with a

collar. The draft angles are the same. Pay attention
that there must be draft angle also in all the collar
faces.

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Image 8. The same shapes in a mould movable and fixed half Note that the corner in which the
parting surface is located is sharp in the movable half, but rounded in the fixed half with the cavity.

Image 9. Parting surface in a flat part. Left: The parting surface is located in the middle of a part.
Draft angle takes there an opposite direction. Right: Parting surface in the bottom face of the part.
Pay attention to the rounded corners.

Image 10. A sliding core mechanism. The

basic components in this system are: angle
pins, slides, guiding rails and slide locking
components. The idea is to move cores out of
the part during the mould opening movement.
After the cores are removed, the ejection is
possible.

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Sometimes the part has shapes which block the mould opening and/or part ejection. Counterdraft and These
shapes are called back drafts or counterdrafts. Typical example of such shape is moving cores
a hole in the side of the moulded part. Back draft requires a moving core to the mould.
There are three basic structures: a slide mechanism, a pulling cylinder and a string
loaded pulling mechanism.

The part is removed from the mould cavity with standard mould parts called ejectors. Ejectors I
Ejectors are round, flat or cylinder shaped pins with a collar on one end. The ejectors
are fastened with this collar between the ejector set plates, ejector base plate and
ejector retaining plate. (See image 2.) The ejector set is guided with strong ejector pins,
ejector returning pins or with special guiding components. The ejector set is fastened
to the injection moulding or high pressure die casting machine ejection system. A high
pressure die casting mould is fastened with four ejection bars. An injection moulding
mould is typically fastened with one ejector pushing component which is placed into
the middle of the ejector set plates. Typically the high pressure die casting die ejection
set needs only a light guiding system or no guiding at all.

Image 11. Ejector pins. The part is removed from the

mould cavity with round, flat or cylinder shaped ejectors.

It is possible to produce one, two or several parts with the same mould. A mould with Multiple cavities
more than a one cavity is called a multi-cavity mould. A mould with only a one cavity is vs. single cavities
called a single-cavity mould.

Image 12. A single cavity mould. This type of injection

moulding mould can be filled with a very simple runner and
gating system, but the sprue bushing must be located in the
middle. If it would be more preferable to fill the cavity from
the side, single cavity mould is not practical any more.
Injection moulding mould sprue and ejector set fastening
must locate opposite to each other and both in the center of
the plates.

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Image 13. Multiple cavity mould. This type of mould gives

more freedom in selecting the filling point. In injection
moulding moulds there are two types of runner systems: cold
rummer and a hot runner. Cold runner must be placed to the
parting surface and it is removed from the mould cavity
together with the part. Hot runner system is placed inside the
fixed cavity plate.

There are two different options in injection moulding mould runner and gating systems: Injection moul-
Hot runner and cold runner. Cold runner is rather simple. It consists of a gate and a ding mould
runner. The gate is specially machined and shaped hole to the mould cavity. The runner runners
guides the moulded material to the gate. The hot runner system consists of nozzles and of
a specially designed heated channel system, hot runner. Both nozzles and the hot runner
are placed inside the fixed cavity plate above the mould cavity.

Image 14. Left: Cold runner in a single cavity mould. Cross section of the mould core
plate. Right: The same structure with the moulded part

Image 15. A complete hot-runner system with round nozzles.

With this type of runner system the mould can be filled from
top of the part, not from the parting surface like with the
cold runner system.

High pressure die casting die runner system is completely different from the injection High pressure die
moulding mould runner systems. The runner and gates are always located in the parting casting die runner
surface. There are two basic high pressure die casting machine types: a hot chamber types
machine and a cold chamber machine, but the runner systems are much alike. The high
pressure die casting die gating system consistes of bisquit or sprue, runner, gate,
overflows and vents. (See images next page.)

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Image 16. Left: Runner and gating system Jo ra cold chamber high pressure die casting machine.
Right: Runner and gating system for a hot chamber high pressure die casting machine. The main
difference is the sprue vs. bisquit and the runner shapes near the sprue.

The injection moulding mould has a tendency either to heat up or cool down during Cooling/tempering
operation. The high pressure die casting dies always have the tendency to heat up too channels
much if nothing is done to maintain the thermal balance. The thermal balance is
maintained by circulating heated oil or heated water through mould tempering channels.
Injection moulding mould is usually insulated thermally from the machine with
insulating plates. High pressure die casting does not need such equipment. The main
focus is on cooling the mould down.
Tempering channels can be simple straight drilled holes or they can be shaped according
to the mould/die cavity shapes and contain special components which function is to bring
turbulence into the cooling agent flow.

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