When working within the injection mold industry there seems to be a lot of money for someone to make. One area that does real well are the company’s manufacturing the mold designs themselves not normally for the first design but the rework to follow.
Autodesk Inventor tooling has some great analysis built into it that will allow us to:
Identify Part Defects—pinpoint the severity and location of potential manufacturing defects, such as weld lines and air traps. Then, make design changes to avoid these problems.
A part fill analysis evaluates an individual plastic part. Fill analyses answer the following questions:
1. Will the injection molding process produce parts of acceptable quality?
2. Which material should be used?
3. What are the optimal process settings?
4. How many gate locations are required and how will this affect mold filling?
5. Where are the potential defects such as weld lines and air traps?
After the analysis is complete we have the ability to investigate the following results:
Fill time result - The Fill time result shows the position of the flow front at regular intervals as the cavity fills.
Confidence of fill result - The Confidence of fill result displays the probability of plastic filling a region within the cavity under conventional injection molding conditions.
Quality prediction result - The Quality prediction result is used to estimate the quality of the mechanical properties and appearance of the part. This result is derived from the pressure, temperature and other results.
Air traps result - The Air traps result shows a thin, continuous line wherever an air trap is likely to occur.
Weld lines result - The Weld Lines result displays the angle of convergence as two flow fronts meet.
Fill time result - The Fill time result shows the position of the flow front at regular intervals as the cavity fills.
Confidence of fill result - The Confidence of fill result displays the probability of plastic filling a region within the cavity under conventional injection molding conditions.
Quality prediction result - The Quality prediction result is used to estimate the quality of the mechanical properties and appearance of the part. This result is derived from the pressure, temperature and other results.
Air traps result - The Air traps result shows a thin, continuous line wherever an air trap is likely to occur.
Weld lines result - The Weld Lines result displays the angle of convergence as two flow fronts meet.
Having this easy to use functionality and others we can produce a better plastic part and overall mold design which will lead to much less rework and a better mold design the first time.
Video Link:
http://www.screencast.com/t/ZGY0MzVmZ
Created by one of the Cad Geeks
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