3D numerical simulation of transient temperature field for lens mold embedded with heaters

In injection mold, cooling process has important effects on parts quality and production cost. Traditional cooling simulation is conducted in a decoupled way by a cycle-averaged approach plus one-dimensional transient variation for computational efficiency concern. In the present study, fully 3D simulations of mold temperature variation based on FEM and FVM implemented in parallel computation scheme were executed for lens mold embedded with heaters. With the fully 3D simulation, mold temperature and melt temperature are solved in coupled manner and obtained simultaneously. Also the time when mold temperature distribution reaches the cyclic-average steady state can be determined. The simulation results were verified with measured cavity temperatures using infrared thermal image system at interest locations. The numerical results for cyclic, transient with heat source problem show reasonable consistency with measured values. The computing time with multi-CPU and parallel scheme is much less than that of single CPU.