Temperature uniformity of heated mold plate by oscillating heat pipe

Abstract

© Owned by the authors, published by EDP Sciences, 2015. Uniformity of the temperature in the mold plate is of paramount important since it will affect the dimensional stability of the part produced. To provide uniform temperature to the metal plate, many factors need to be considered such as choice of heating technology, uniformity of a heat source, a type of control, etc. This paper aims to study the temperature uniformity of metal plate using closed-loop oscillating heat pipe (CLOHP) as a heat transfer device. The metal plates which were P-20 with the size of 306 x 130 mm2 were used. Metal plate was gouged to a depth of 3 mm for installing the CLOHP. Distances from the heating device to the metal plate surface were 5 and 10 mm. The surface temperatures of the metal plate were controlled at 80, 90, 100, 110, 120, and 130°C. Sixteen pointa of temperature were recorded. The results were then compared to those using the heat source as the cartridge heater arranged in the similar way with the same heating capacity. Once the system entered the steady state, it was found that the temperature distribution of metal plate using the CLOHP has a deviation in the range of ± 1.00°C and ± 0.94°C at the CLOHP depth of 5 mm. and 10 mm., respectively. While those of using cartridge heater deviated in the range of ± 1.35°C and ± 1.16°C. Compare to the recommended value from the ASTM Standard that the mold surface temperature need to be in the range of ± 2.0 ° C, the CLOHP shows the very promising results.