Determining the Influencing Factors on the Cooling of a 3D Printed Thermoforming Mould

Using a mould for thermoforming produced by fused filament fabrication implies several limitations, such as thermal damage due to the low conductivity properties of plastic material. For cooling mould, many different approaches and influencing factors can be considered. This paper identifies those factors, based on statistical DOE, adequate experiments have been conducted analyze influence process variables. The results reveal that using Voronoi pattern performs an optimum, uniform, effective cooling. By PLA material, lowest temperatures are obtained in case moulds with Conformal Cooling channels.