Plastics Insight 6.0 Adds Simulation Speed, Accuracy, and Capacity Breakthroughs

By DE Editors

Moldflow Corporation(Framingham, MA), a provider of design through manufacturing solutionsfor the plastics injection molding industry, announced release 6.0 ofMoldflow Plastics Insight (MPI). MPI 6.0 was designed to deliver newtechnologies and key enhancements to help users work more efficiently,cut solution time, and interact better with CAD, structural analysis,and other Moldflow applications. It also should help users betterunderstand and communicate analysis results.

Two new technologies in MPI 6.0 bring significant breakthroughs for 3Dfilling and warpage applications. The new coupled 3D Flow solver issaid to be up to eight times faster and renders more accuratetemperature and shear heating calculations. There are new capabilitiesto predict air traps and to simulate gas penetration in 1D beamelements, and the first-of-its-kind capability to simulate jettingphenomena. Similarly, new 3D Warp solver technology delivers results upto 35 times faster.

“Succeeding in today’s global market depends on continuously increasingefficiency and performance,” said Ken Welch, executive VP and generalmanager of Moldflow’s Design Analysis Solutions business unit. “This isespecially true in the plastics industry, where the widespread use of3D CAD systems for integrated part and tool design has generated acorresponding shift to CAE analysis technologies that run directly onthose 3D models. The new 3D solver technologies in MPI 6.0 embody theculmination of a major research and development undertaking and employthe latest numerical simulation techniques to break down former speedand capacity barriers for our customers who increasingly rely on MPI/3Dsolutions to increase output and quality.”

Other key features of MPI 6.0 include a more efficient, panel-baseduser interface: A reorganized display reduces screen clutter and allowsmore efficient workflow for most tasks with a new Tools panel andToolbox, consolidated Project and Study Tasks panel, and single logwindow that consolidates most textual outputs.

There’s also improved product integration: Export Part/Runner/Coolingmodel to CAD via IGES format, improved interfaces to Abaqus and ANSYS,a new interface to LS-DYNA, plus new capabilities to exchangedesign-through-manufacturing data between Moldflow ManufacturingSolutions and Design Analysis Solutions products. The improvedintegration between MPI and industry standard structural integrationprograms allows designers of high-performance plastic applications tomore accurately account for the effects of processing on theperformance of injection molded plastic parts when subject to serviceloading.

MPI 6.0 also includes streamlined diagnostic and communication tools.Users can systematically validate mesh quality with directeddiagnostics navigation; generate reports in Microsoft Word orPowerPoint formats, in addition to HTML format; and share informationwith a distributed design-through-manufacturing team by exportingMoldflow results files and creating comparison criteria files forviewing in the Moldflow Communicator utility.

Finally, the release also enables more informative result displays. Youcan isolate warpage due to unbalanced cooling, non-uniform shrinkageand fiber orientation in 3D Warp, view mold internal temperaturedistributions in 3D Cool, see the plastic re-melt zone in 3DOvermolding, capture changes in the flow front due to jetting in 3DFlow, visualize the Von Mises stresses on the surface of the core inCore Shift, and isolate warpage due to corner effects for Midplane andFusion Warp analyses.

MPI 6.0 is available now. For more information, please visit moldflow.com.