Soft tooling processes use flexible polymeric materials to manufacture moulds. However, the malleable materials used for soft tooling, such as silicone rubber, have low thermal conductivities and take an extensive amount of time to cool. In this study, metallic (Aluminum fine powder, grey iron, copper, magnesium, titanium, zinc) and non-metallic (graphite, silicone, glass) thermally conductive filler particles were added to silicone rubber to condense the cooling time of soft tooling ...
Adding thermally conductive fillers into flexible moulds has been proven to decrease the solidification time of the polymers. The aim of this study was to determine the thermal conductivity, thermal diffusivity, and specific heat of the flexible moulds polyurethane (PU) and silicone rubber (SR) after the addition of aluminum and graphite. Thermal properties were measured using the transient plane source (TPS) method. Results showed that the thermal conductivities of particulate ...
In the soft tooling process for making moulds, polyurethane is often used as a flexible mould material. The low thermal conductivity of polyurethane results in a long solidification time of the wax/plastic pattern produced in the soft tooling process. In an effort to address this issue, the authors of this article have added highly conductive fillers to polyurethane. The fillers used for this study were aluminum fine powder and ...
