Verifying the Effectiveness of a Conformal Cooling Design for Fishing Reel Spool Shell Products
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Shimano is regarded as one of the forerunners in product innovation, and is an innovative leader in the industry. Shimano prides itself on its ability to design and produce a fishing tackle that features cutting edge technology such as High Efficiency Gearing (HEG), A-RB and TC4 construction. With an eye towards the future, Shimano is heavily involved in youth development, environmental and governmental affairs that help protect the land and sea.
Executive Summary
As industry leader, Shimano delivers high-quality fishing tackle products. The spool shell is one of the major components of a fishing reel with insert molding. Shimano was not able to reduce the cycle time and increase its manufacturing productivity with a conventional cooling design. By implementing Moldex3D simulation solutions, Shimano was not only able to detect molding defects caused by the limitations of conventional cooling systems, but was also able to further verify the effectiveness of using a conformal cooling design.
Challenges
- Long cooling time resulted in low productivity
- Flow marks
- Dimensional displacements
- Burn marks
The Solution
To ensure a balance between product quality and low costs, Shimano selected Moldex3D simulation software to predict areas in the spool shell part that may incur hot spots. They used conformal cooling channels to better access hard-to-reach areas.
Benefits
- Cycle time was reduced by nearly 50%
- Part appearance improvement
- Good dimensional stability with less warpage deformation
Case Study
The production of the spool shell is one of the major steps in fishing reel unit assembly. In order to allow the cooling circuit to reach the burned area, Shimano looked into the possibility of developing a conformal cooling design using Direct Metal Laser Sintering (DMLS) technology. In order to verify the benefits of using a conformal cooling system, Shimano conducted a project to compare the simulation results between conventional and conformal cooling designs using three different insert materials.
| Group | Cooling Design | Descriptions |
| Case Study: 0 |  |
Original Design (DHA1 ) (Without cooling the inside due to design limitations) |
| Case Study: 1 | Use High Performance Material (DHA-Thermo) ( Without cooling the inside ) |
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| Case Study: 2 | Use High Performance Material -MoldmaxHH (Be-Cu) ( Without cooling the inside ) |
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| Case Study: 3 |  |
Direct Metal Laser Sintering – Maraging Steel (MS1) ( With the conformal cooling insert design ) |
The purpose of including high thermal conductivity materials in the case study was to verify the effectiveness of the higher thermal conductivity material and compare the results with those of the conformal cooling design. Both simulation and real mold trial results showed that the temperature of the insert materials with higher thermal conductivity, such as DHA-Thermo and MoldmaxHH (Be-Cu) is higher than the one with the DMLS conformal cooling insert. The results demonstrated that using the conformal cooling design effectively removed the heat from the insert.
| Case Study: 0 | Case Study: 1 | Case Study: 2 | Case Study: 3 | |
| Material | CS:ORI (DHA1) | CS: 1 (DHA-The) | CS: 2 MM(Be-Cu) | CS: 3 DMLC (MS1) |
| Warpage |  |
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| Max. 0.114mm | Max. 0.114mm | Max. 0.108mm | Max. 0.075 | |
| Cooling Time |  |
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| 32.4sec | 24.5sec | 8.04sec | 10.5 Sec |
The project presented the warpage (left ) and cooling time (right ) comparison results between the conventional cooling designs and the conformal cooling one. The simulation results demonstrated that the conformal cooling design was able to reduce the cooling time by 67% and warpage displacement by 35%.
A comparison was also made between the conventional (left) and conformal cooling system (right) designs by looking at the sink mark displacement analysis results.
Results
Moldex3D enabled Shimano make an informed decision about changing to the conformal cooling design for all spool shell production. Through adopting the DMLS conformal cooling technology, Shimano was able to reduce injection molding cycle time by 47% while maintaining quality and improving dimensional stability by 35%. Now, utilizing Moldex3D to verify product and tool designs before actual production has become a standard procedure in Shimano. Most importantly, to extend the scope of practice of utilizing Moldex3D simulation solutions, Shimano has also requested their mold makers to submit CAE reports beforehand to validate manufacturing feasibility and ensure optimal mold design.
| Case Study: 0 | Case Study: 1 | Case Study: 2 | Case Study: 3 | |
| Design |  |
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| Material | CS:ORI (DHA1) | CS: 1 (DHA-The) | CS: 2 MM(Be-Cu | CS: 3 DMLC (MS1) |
| Result | Fully burned | Partially burned | No burn-finish | Good condition |
Using HPM material with core sub insert conformal cooling, Shimano was able to achieve a minimum of 47% savings in cycle time.