Published Article / The efficient design and manufacturing of injection moulds (and other tooling), requires collaboration between multi-disciplinary, geographically separated units and companies, including the company that orders plastic parts, the ones that design and/or produce the moulds and/or mould-components, and those that use injection moulding machines to produce components. Distributed collaborative tooling design and manufacturing, while being a great concept, is still difficult to implement in today's complex environment. This is clear as more functional groups become involved in the total product development process earlier to meet time-to-market and cost objectives. <br>Although internal design and manufacturing groups may have experience in collaborating with different degrees of success, the global trend is towards greater outsourcing of activities and inclusion of complementary organisations. The requirement for extended collaboration - the process of securely and selectively exchanging, reviewing, and managing the change of product information with other internal participants and external groups such as customers, design partners, suppliers and distributed manufacturing companies - presents huge challenges. <br>Delivering these capabilities in today's global product development processes requires a different approach to doing business than a few years ago. Companies must be willing to share more information, which "is hard because we are competitors." The toolmaking companies' in South Africa (of which 90% are small and medium size enterprises (SMEs)) concern for success in delivering these capabilities, can also be greatly impacted by the underlying software or information technology infrastructure required for supporting the entire product development process. <br>This article provides a perspective for SMEs and others that might participate in collaborative tool design and manufacture in South Africa today or in the future.

Published Article / The paper presents a critical review of the techniques that are used to cool plastic injection moulds. It examines research on cooling of injection moulds by conventional cooling, the benefits and the limitations of the method. It compares the deployment mechanisms that have been proposed by various researchers. It also examines how the various mechanisms affect the plastic cooling rate and the overall heat transfer performance of the mould and how the various deployments affect the stress distribution of the mould and mould durability. The paper also presents the possibilities that have been presented by rapid prototyping. It discusses the development of conformal cooling as an alternative to conventional cooling. It presents the state of the art on the method. The paper presents the deficiencies in the current theories on conformal cooling and suggests areas that require further work in order to fully exploit the technique.

This thesis solves actual engineering tasks from the field of motorcycle industry. The first part describes the design of several plastic parts for Czech motorcycle Blata125. The design of injection moulds for selected parts is described in second part of the thesis.

O propósito desse trabalho foi o de produzir lentes biconvexas pelo processo de injeção para serem utilizadas no ensino de óptica geométrica e de ciências nos níveis fundamental e médio. A importância de tal trabalho se justifica na carência de material experimental didático produzido no mercado nacional. Para atingir os objetivos propostos, foi necessário estudar o processo de injeção de termoplásticos e adequá-lo à produção de um componente óptico. No desenvolvimento do trabalho, foi projetado e confeccionado um molde para injeção das lentes, segundo especificações técnicas e apoiado em resultados obtidos através de simulações numéricas. Após a realização de testes de injeção, seguiu-se a caracterização das lentes obtidas através de parâmetros ópticos: transparência, birrefrigência, índice de refração, distância focal, raio de curvatura e FTM / The purpose of this work was the development and production of acrylic biconvex lens by injection process to be used in optical and science teaching at elementary and high schools. The importance of such work is based in the deficiency of experimental didactic material made in Brazil. In order to achieve the intended objective it was necessary to study the thermoplastic injection process and adapt it to the fabrication of an optical element. During the development of the work a mold was designed and constructed in according to technical specifications and based on results of numerical simulations. After the injection tests the lens were characterized by theirs optical parameters: transparency, birefringence, refraction index, focal distance, curvature radius and MFT

O propósito desse trabalho foi o de produzir lentes biconvexas pelo processo de injeção para serem utilizadas no ensino de óptica geométrica e de ciências nos níveis fundamental e médio. A importância de tal trabalho se justifica na carência de material experimental didático produzido no mercado nacional. Para atingir os objetivos propostos, foi necessário estudar o processo de injeção de termoplásticos e adequá-lo à produção de um componente óptico. No desenvolvimento do trabalho, foi projetado e confeccionado um molde para injeção das lentes, segundo especificações técnicas e apoiado em resultados obtidos através de simulações numéricas. Após a realização de testes de injeção, seguiu-se a caracterização das lentes obtidas através de parâmetros ópticos: transparência, birrefrigência, índice de refração, distância focal, raio de curvatura e FTM / The purpose of this work was the development and production of acrylic biconvex lens by injection process to be used in optical and science teaching at elementary and high schools. The importance of such work is based in the deficiency of experimental didactic material made in Brazil. In order to achieve the intended objective it was necessary to study the thermoplastic injection process and adapt it to the fabrication of an optical element. During the development of the work a mold was designed and constructed in according to technical specifications and based on results of numerical simulations. After the injection tests the lens were characterized by theirs optical parameters: transparency, birefringence, refraction index, focal distance, curvature radius and MFT