Conformal Cooling of Aluminium Flat Fins Using a 3D Printed Water-Cooled Mould

Additive manufacturing (AM) of high pressure die casting (HPDC) tools for casting complex aluminium parts provides more versatility in achieving conformal cooling. Nevertheless, the high thermal fatigue of the tools near the casting cavity restricts the use of small coolant pipe diameters or the location of the pipes closer to the cast cavity. Therefore, cooling corners are still a concern as the heat transfer surface area is limited compared to the volume. In addition, due to flow separation, cooling flow cannot be efficient. In this work, a steady model has been employed based on experimental observations and decoupling the cast part from the mould. The model can be employed to assess the tool cooling in channels that are close enough to the cast surface with low percentage of energy stored in the tool during the solidification process. A simple U-shape geometry represents an idealized subset of a more complex geometry is used in this study. The challenges to achieve a uniform interface temperature have been illustrated for small radius corners, and heat flux distribution has been evaluated relative to a reference flat surface. The effect of the cooling channel depth, pitch, and Reynolds number on heat flux distribution around flat fins has been evaluated. It is been concluded that further work is needed to achieve a more effective cooling for internal corners.