CAx-ReMold – Sustainable Reuse of Retired Moulds as Workpiece Blanks through the Integration of Part Acquisition into a Resource-Oriented CAD/CAM Chain

In industrial tool and mould making, retired or incorrectly manufactured moulds are often stored or scrapped, although they still offer considerable potential for reuse. Disposal causes additional costs and high energy consumption, while remanufacturing could achieve substantial savings.

However, companies currently lack suitable methods to systematically reuse existing moulds as near-net-shape blanks for new applications. In particular, uncertainties regarding the actual geometry, required machining effort and achievable energy savings hinder economic decision-making. This represents a largely untapped efficiency and sustainability potential, especially for small and medium-sized enterprises.

Objectives

The objective of CAx-ReMold is to develop a continuous, resource-oriented CAD/CAM methodology for reusing retired moulds as workpiece blanks. The project aims to:

• Enable automated acquisition and digital reconstruction of used moulds
• Develop algorithms for matching target and actual geometries to select suitable blanks
• Implement automated process and fixturing planning for remanufacturing
• Evaluate energy, cost and CO₂ saving potentials
• Reduce material consumption, manufacturing time and production costs

Benefits

The project enables significant reductions in energy and manufacturing costs through the reuse of existing moulds, shortens lead times, reduces material consumption and strengthens companies’ competitiveness by supporting sustainable manufacturing strategies.

Approach

Retired moulds are optically scanned and their geometries are automatically transferred into CAD models. Based on this data, algorithms for fitting new target geometries are developed and integrated into a resource-oriented CAD/CAM chain. In addition, automated process and fixturing planning as well as an energy-based comparison between remanufacturing and conventional production are implemented. The methods are validated using demonstrator components and prepared for industrial application.

Are you also interested in a cooperation project?

Contact Mert Kandemir via email at kandemir@ifw.uni-hannover.de or by phone at +49 511 762 8078.