Multi-objective Optimization of an Injection Mold Cooling Circuit for Uniform Cooling

An injection mold cooling circuit for an automotive front bumper was optimally designed in order to simultaneously minimize the average of the standard deviations of the temperature and the difference in mean temperatures of the upper and lower molds for uniform cooling. The temperature distribution for a specified design was evaluated by Moldflow Insight 2010, a commercial injection molding analysis tool. For efficient design, PIAnO (Process Integration, Automation and Optimization), a commercial PIDO tool, was used to integrate and automate injection molding analysis procedure. The weighted-sum method was used to handle the multi-objective optimization problem and PQRSM, a function-based sequential approximate optimizer equipped in PIAnO, to handle numerically noisy responses with respect to the variation of design variables. The optimal average of the standard deviations and difference in mean temperatures were found to be reduced by 9.2% and 56.52%, respectively, compared to the initial ones.