by Sarra Zoghlami
For cost estimators who need to evaluate the cost of manufacturing a part before designing the mold, and mold designers who want to avoid hot spots.
Introduction
In the plastic injection mold design industry, conducting a part analysis is a fundamental step to make informed decisions and ensures optimized outcomes during the quoting process, before designing the mold.
SimForm's Feasibility Project is a Design For Manufacturing (DFM) tool that computes a good and achievable cooling time and temperature distribution for your plastic part based on its geometry and material, assuming a well-designed mold.
In this article, you will learn how to set up, solve, and interpret the results of a feasibility analysis.
Content
You can perform a feasibility analysis for your plastic part before the associated mold is designed. You only need to upload your plastic part's CAD file, configure, and solve your model.
The Feasibility analyses lets you:
- Estimate the most efficient cooling time for your plastic part to set clear mold cycle time targets before designing the mold.
- Identify hot spots within the plastic part to anticipate challenges and risks early in the mold design process and provide valuable feedback to the part designer.
- Test various materials for both plastic and mold components to select the most optimal materials, enhancing mold performance and reducing the risk of part defects.
This step-by-step video demonstration shows an example of using SimForm to perform a feasibility analysis on a plastic part:
Conclusion
The SimForm Feasibility Project uses cloud-based GPUs and automated meshing that lets you achieve quicker simulations and shorter project lead times.
With the fast setup and run time of the SimForm Feasibility project, you can analyze parts at varying levels of maturity, helping you make informed decisions early on, reduce risk and streamline your workflow. This approach enables you to accurately estimate short and realistic cooling times and set clear mold cycle time targets. You can also identify process improvements to proactively recommend and implement design changes and minimize uncertainties when quoting manufacturing costs.