A new method of manufacturing a rapid tooling with different cross-sectional cooling channels.

The cooling effect is better than conventional cooling channels because the conformal cooling channels have a uniform distance between the mold surfaces and the channels. In this study, a new method aiming to enhance cooling efficiency in the low-pressure wax injection molding process was proposed. It was found that a reduction in cooling time of about 81% can be obtained when a wax injection mold with conformal cooling channels is compared to that without cooling channels. In addition, a rapid tooling fabricated by this technology has some distinct advantages such as rapid tooling size, interior quality of conformal cooling channels, production costs, and post-processing operations compared to the selective laser sintering technology, selective laser melting technology, and diffusion bonding technology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]