Patent attributes
A shaping tool includes a cooling system having one or more cooling passages configured for enhanced cooling. The cooling passages provide latent heat cooling of a heated material that is in contact with a shaping surface of the tool. Cooling fluid flows along the cooling passages in a two-phase flow regime in which a portion of the cooling fluid is liquid and a portion of the cooling fluid is vapor. A two-phase portion of the cooling passage can be shaped to follow a three-dimensional contour of the shaping surface. Opposing walls of the cooling passage can be provided by passage surfaces of separately formed pieces of the tool. The latent heat cooling provided by suitably configured cooling channels extracts more heat from the material being shaped in the tool than traditional cooling systems.
