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Abstract: 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 graphite granules. The thermal properties of the samples were measured, and the modulus of elasticity was determined using the tensile testing method. The thermal conductivity and modulus of elasticity were both found to increase upon the addition of the filler particles, and the increase in thermal conductivity was found to reduce the cooling time in the soft tooling process. The experimental results were compared to pre-existing numerical models.

Reference: Journal of the Brazilian Society of Mechanical Science and Engineering, 33, 3 (2011) 332-342

DOI: 10.1590/S1678-58782011000300009