An appraisal on the sustainability payback of additively manufactured molds with conformal cooling

The use of Additive Manufacturing (AM) in the production of tooling for injection molding has led to the introduction of conformal cooling as an effective way to lower the cycle time of the process. As the cooling cycle is responsible for a large portion of the energy consumed during the injection molding process, conformal cooling allows increasing the energy efficiency. However, AM could create a large upfront cost of energy for the manufacturing phase. This paper investigates a case study where a cradle-to-grave life-cycle assessment is used to evaluate the cumulative energy demand of conventional or conformal cooling molds.