The Value of Simulation Web Series: Part Four

We just concluded Part 4 of our SOLIDWORKS Simulation webinar series. If you missed the previous webinars, you will find the links below for the recordings. The Value and Productivity themes here show the depth and breadth of the SOLIDWORKS Simulation solutions.

Theme #1 – The Value of Simulation / Which Design is the best

Part 4: “Can your Plastics Part be Manufactured?”

Three facts on plastic injection molding:

#1: Plastic products are everywhere. From consumer products to high-tech, medical, automotive and other industries, you will see plastics being used in a wide variety of applications and in great quantities.

#2: Plastic injection molding is the most common process for plastics manufacturing. While many different processes exist for plastics part manufacturing, injection molding is the process used for most plastics products.

#3: Any improvements or mistakes could be consequential. Mold-making is very expensive and mistakes are costly. Reducing the cycle time in plastic injection molding for even a couple of seconds can make a huge difference in terms of overall profitability, considering the high number of parts being manufactured and the expensive machines involved. Part quality and the many things that can potentially go wrong make plastic injection molding not only a science but also an art.

These three facts highlight the significance of Plastic Injection Molding and getting it right. The part designer wants to ensure not only the functionality of the part but also its aesthetics. Sink marks and air traps resulting in potential burn marks make a plastic part less appealing to the consumer. Excessive warpage can result in the part not fitting with other parts it is attached to. Weld lines may compromise stiffness and make the part brake more easily. And you obviously cannot ship a part with short shots, be it because the walls are too thin, the machine injection pressure is too low or any other reasons.

 

Similarly, a better runner design together with runner balancing to decrease cycle time, selection of gate locations and valve gates, multi-shots, family molds, co-injection and venting analysis are important aspects that can be simulated, thus giving the part designer and mold-maker a better insight into what to expect and how to improve not only the part but also its manufacturing.

 

SOLIDWORKS Plastics Simulation can help the part designer improve the design and avoid potential performance and other practical issues as an integral part of the design process and at the very early stage. For the mold-maker, SOLIDWORKS Plastics Simulation can be extremely beneficial as well, reducing time, costs and improving overall efficiency for all parties involved.

 

Click here to watch the recording of this webinar for complete details.

Click here to watch Part 3 of this webinar series.

Click here to watch Part 2 of this webinar series.

Click here to watch Part 1 of this webinar series.

Theme #2 – Improving Productivity using SOLIDWORKS Simulation

Part 4: Large Assembly Analysis & Submodeling

A designer using CAD for modeling ideally wants to see everything as it is going to get built in the real world, including every part in the assembly and their respective features. An engineer using Simulation tools such as Finite Element Analysis (FEA) or Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) wants to get the physics and the functional behavior right. Based on the complexity of the model, the state of the art in technology and tools available and many other factors, the engineer makes judgement calls what to simulate and how to do it.

For CAD parts and small assemblies, you can typically use SOLIDWORKS Simulation for FEA and CFD quite effectively and with minimal user interaction and stay with the bare minimum input. When it comes to large assemblies though, just by the nature of FEA and CFD and these numerical methods in general, more user interaction is needed and many judgement calls have to be made.

In this webinar, we highlight some of these judgement calls when doing FEA for large assembly analysis. Also reviewed are some of the specific tools within SOLIDWORKS Simulation that make it easier to run a Simulation more effectively.

While a system level analysis is important, many times you need a more detailed analysis of sub-assemblies and specific parts that are more critical and more prone to failure. This is where sub-modeling in SOLIDWORKS Simulation comes in.

We discuss the fundamental concept behind submodeling and Saint-Venant’s principle in structural mechanics and demo it using a simplified PCB example.

As a tech tip, we highlight the fact that we have the same concept of submodeling available in SOLIDWORKS Flow Simulation for CFD, albeit under a different name of Transferred Boundary Condition and EFD Zooming.

To watch some of the previous webinars in this series, click on the links below.

Click here to watch the recording of this webinar for complete details.

Click here to watch Part 3 of this webinar series.

Click here to watch Part 2 of this webinar series.

Click here to watch Part 1 of this webinar series.

You can also register now for this upcoming webinar.


Sign up for next week’s webinar on June 17th – Topology Optimization – Exploring the AM Space click here.

Reza Tabatabai is a Sr. Technical Manager for Simulation products, focusing on SOLIDWORKS Simulation and SIMULIA works product portfolios at Dassault Systèmes. He has 20 years of industry experience. Reza received his PhD from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH Zurich) and was a Lecturer & Research Associate at the University of California at Berkeley.