by Sarra Zoghlami
Introduction
In the mold design process, the properties of the mold material affect the manufacturing efficiency and the quality of the final product. SimForm's numerical simulation allows you to assess the cooling efficiency of different mold materials without costly prototyping. SimForm also lets you create multiple mold groups, each with distinct material properties. This allows you to evaluate the thermal efficiency of molds, including those with various material inserts, improving the accuracy of your mold cooling thermal analysis.
In this article, we provide a step-by-step video demonstration on creating multiple mold groups to define mold components and inserts with different materials.
Content
SimForm uses the thermal properties of the part and mold materials to calculate the heat flow from the plastic part through the mold components to the cooling channels. It considers the thermal capacity and thermal conductivity of the selected materials to calculate the temperature distribution in the mold and the plastic part.
Mold group panels in SimForm allow you to categorize the different parts of your mold based on their material properties. If your model contains inserts with different materials than the mold, for example Beryllium copper, you can use one mold group panel to identify the inserts and another mold group panel to identify all other parts of the mold with the same metal material.
You can also use mold group panels to categorize the different parts of your model based on the components. For example, even if the mold components have the same material, you can use one mold group to define the core of the mold and another mold group to define the cavity material of the mold. This is useful when displaying the temperature. The mold groups allow you to view the results separately for each group, making it easier to analyze the results and understand the thermal behavior of your mold.
By default, the setup page contains one mold group. Click + Mold Group to create additional mold groups.
This video shows an example of creating mold groups in SimForm to define material properties for the mold and inserts:
Conclusion
SimForm's mold design capabilities simplify material property evaluation and thermal analysis. By creating and analyzing multiple mold groups with different materials, you gain valuable insights into the thermal behavior of your molds, ensuring superior design decisions.