Embark on an exciting journey into the world of creating a fully functional simulation racing steering wheel, using Autodesk Fusion capabilities: Design, electronics, simulation, and manufacturing—all within one seamless solution. Witness the collaborative efforts of global industry experts and suppliers as they bring this project to life. Join us and experience innovation in motion!

Have you attended our Autodesk University Factory Live Experience? Want to learn how we created some of the parts using Autodesk Fusion 360 software? In this session, the team that helped design the keypad for the Autodesk University Factory will walk through how Autodesk Simulation tools can help you along your design journey from concept to production. Learn if Fusion 360 injection molding simulation is right for you, or if you need Moldflow injection molding simulation to get your part production ready.

Selecting the correct injection molding simulation software can be challenging when designing plastic parts. This session will review the various Autodesk simulation tools available on the market today, including Fusion Injection Molding Simulation, Moldflow Adviser, and Moldflow Insight. This in-depth comparison will help you understand which injection molding simulation tool is right for your needs based on your objectives and desired outcomes.

Commercially available simulation software was used to study the effect of processing conditions on the structural performance of glass-fiber-reinforced polypropylene. Processing conditions such as gate locations were used to evaluate the subsequent change in glass fiber orientation and its effect on structural performance of a demonstrative part. Results show that processing conditions play a critical role in the success of a structural composite and must be considered foremost in the design process.

This class will discuss the requirements and workflow for simulating flow imbalances in injection molding that are caused by shear heating in branched runner systems. Validation case studies will also include the MeltFlipper design, as well as in-cavity flow imbalances that lead to race-track effects. This class will focus on the use of the Autodesk Moldflow Insight software.

Resin transfer molding (RTM) is a relatively established technique for manufacturing continuous fiber composites. As lightweighting initiatives continue in automotive, new techniques for RTM are being established to reduce cycle time. Join the Moldflow and OCTO Teams for a discussion and demonstration of the RTM capabilities within Moldflow software, including forming simulations to acquire fiber orientations for the flow simulation in Moldflow software. This session features Moldflow and TruPlan.

This presentation will focus on simulation techniques used to compare traditional hurling stick material and performance against a composite redesign. We used several Autodesk tools—including Fusion 360 software, Netfabb software, Moldflow, and Autodesk Nastran software—to evaluate and optimize the performance of the composite structure.

In this class, you will learn about products in the Autodesk Simulation Moldflow software ecosystem that can bring fantastic and unique capabilities to Moldflow products. We will introduce you to capabilities that can help make your job easier, better, and more fun. The class will cover several products, including Autodesk® Simulation 360 cloud-based software and the Autodesk® Inventor® Fusion Technology Preview, which is a free history-free modeler that you can use to make simple changes to existing CAD geometry. We will also cover the Autodesk® Simulation® DFM add-on, which is a designer tool that helps you develop a plastic part that follows standard plastic design rules and can help you avoid time-consuming iterations between the Moldflow user and the CAD designer. You will learn about Autodesk® PLM 360 cloud-based product lifecyle management and Autodesk® Vault, Autodesk® Showcase®, and Autodesk® Inventor® Publisher software. We will also examine Autodesk® Simulation Mechanical software and the tooling capabilities of Autodesk® Inventor® software. Finally, we will introduce you to the Project Simulus Technology Preview from Autodesk Labs.

This class will describe the benefits of using PowerShape software and Moldflow Insight to model and simulate a conformal cooling tool. With 3D printing on the rise, conformal cooling is becoming a more widely available option to create cooling channels in metal in order to more evenly cool a plastic component during the molding process. Utilizing the modeling power of PowerShape to build a mold with channels following the geometry of the plastic part-and then validating the channels using Moldflow-can save time and money by eliminating the need to 'build it and hope it works."

 Moldflow Insight software is used to develop automotive interior and exterior in China’s Chang’an Automobile Group, from the stage of engineering design to part's structure design then to mold design and molding condition optimize also include the trouble shooting after the first trial. Based on the comparison between the experiment and Moldflow Insight results, Chang’an successfully built an analysis standard and results judge standard. With the help of API, Chang’an created many programs to automatically do the model create, molding condition optimize, results judge, and so on. To meet the assessment criteria of GDT which was used on the part of motor, normally defined the tolerance of fit. Changan's analyst explore and studied a new way to simulate and examine the part's GDT by co-work with Moldflow Insight, Digimat, and Abaqus. This class will use many actual case to show these application, through that we can see the benefit of use right  Moldflow Insight application strategy in the development of automotive interior and exterior new part.

Valve gates are widely used in the plastics molding industry to enhance product quality by eliminating weld lines, reducing flow length, improving packing, and so on. However, the usage of conventional valve gates also brings challenges (including sudden changes in flow front speed and pressure shocks in hot runner systems, among others) that might adversely affect part quality. This class will introduce a new type of valve gate control technology—velocity-controlled valve gate—and we will highlight its benefits. The class will also showcase the newly developed capability in Simulation Moldflow Insight software of simulating the velocity-controlled valve gates.

The optimization of injection molding process parameters and part designs is usually a manual process, utilizing ad hoc methods and dependent on user expertise. OmniQuest’s Iliad Design Exploration and Automation Studio now features a dedicated interface with Moldflow Insight software, bringing enhanced optimization and design automation capabilities to injection molding simulation. This interface creates the opportunity for design space exploration through studies such as 1) optimization, 2) response surface modeling to establish mathematical relationships between process parameters, 3) design of experiments, and 4) reliability analysis. By using Iliad’s integration capability and direct interfaces to Ansys Workbench, Python, and other CAE software, you can also control the complete design cycle using a single platform, including running macros and additional stress analysis. We will showcase how Iliad delivers real cost benefits to Moldflow Insight users through multiple case studies.

In one of our projects, we encountered difficulties molding the parts due to air trap, and all of the cavities did not get filled completely. Short filling was noticed in all 64 cavities, along with flow marks. The gate location was near the core side, so the cavity side was expected to fill last. We used Moldflow software to simulate the molding scenario. With full mold setup, 64 cavities were modeled in Moldflow simulation. We noticed flow hesitation due to a drop in the temperature and pressure of the molten material. Venting was recommended to relieve the air or gas trap, and the cavity was split into two. We finalized the cavity modification drawing proposal with gas vent clearance of 0.02mm and 3mm landing. It was also suggested that we increase runner dimensions to 4mm/4.67mm to aid the flow. After tool modification, the filling results were excellent, and we achieved 100% filling. The hole that formed due to the earlier filling issue no longer exists.

Sabic is a major manufacturer of long fiber filled polypropylene. These long fiber filled plastics can be used to produce light weight structural components with excellent structural properties. Light weighting products is particularly important in the Automotive and Transportation industry, where weight reduction is a major driver for improving fuel economy and reduces the overall carbon footprint over the product life. To leverage the high strength-to-weight ratio, the design of the products have to account for the manufacturing process. The Autodesk Moldflow 2012 release includes the ability to calculate the orientation of long fibers during the injection molding process, which is the main component in understanding the strength characteristics of the products. The understanding of the strength of the products can then in turn be fed back into the design to optimize the design of a lightweight, yet strong, plastic product.

The report generator currently provided with the Moldflow Insight software user interface is powerful but somewhat inflexible. In this class you will discover how you can combine the Moldflow Insight software API with applications within the Microsoft Office Suite (PowerPoint, Excel, and so on) to produce highly customization, visually stunning reports. You will learn how to simply extract geometry, mesh material data, images, animations, and screen output data into a report. We will show several example reports.

To produce high-quality surface finishes for plastic parts with low production costs, automotive suppliers require flash heating of the mold. Induction heating uses high-frequency electricity to heat electrically conductive materials from within the mold. Autodesk, Inc., has teamed with RocTool (the foremost technology provider of induction heating equipment) to simulate this process. This presentation describes the theory, challenges, and 3D finite element solution of the Maxwell electromagnetic field equations. Finally an excellent correlation was achieved with validation data provided by RocTool.

Autodesk® Simulation Moldflow® Insight is a powerful tool to simulate the different stages of the injection molding process. New capabilities of this tool include a transient mold thermal analysis. This type of simulation combines the mold filling and packing simulation with a heat transfer analysis, hence providing increased accuracy in the mold thermal solution. Attendees see the variables that influence the analysis results and improvements that can be done to the model to more closely correlate with the real life. For this purpose, simulation results are compared to experimental results over a design of experiments varying coolant temperature, injection rate, barrel temperature, and cooling time. The experimental results, obtained using an instrumented mold, include temperature and pressure data. Finally, the differences between the transient cooling analysis and the conventional cycle average solution are compared as well as their correlation to experimental results.

Different composite materials have been in used for many years in the automotive industry to create components that have unique characteristics, such as being strong and light. The trend in using composite materials is accelerating to meet lightweighting requirements to meet the next generation of fuel economy standards. An interesting lightweighting application combines the use of continuous fiber composite material with injection molding. The continuous fiber composite material forms a lightweight shell, while the necessary support structure can be created by overmolding it with a fiber-filled plastic. This so-called hybrid technique can create extremely lightweight strong parts that can be manufactured in large volumes. Autodesk® Simulation Moldflow® plastic injection molding simulation software can help with the design and engineering efforts for this process.

Shear imbalance is a tooling gremlin that was often ignored until exposed by John Beaumont about 10 years ago. The causes can be subtle but the problems that result are not. In the last few releases, Autodesk has significantly improved the capability for Autodesk Simulation Moldflow software to evaluate shear imbalance. Last year at AU, Beaumont provided an excellent technical presentation on the subject which resulted in those techniques being adopted by 3D Shapes on projects. Evaluating shear imbalance benefited our customers. We hope by highlighting key points for properly evaluating shear rate and and looking at recent examples, we can now help you benefit from these capabilities too.

The University of Bradford has been using Autodesk Simulation Moldflow software for many years to investigate key injection-molding effects such as fiber orientation, residual stresses, warpage, post-injection product performance, heat transfer, and feature replication. This class builds on our Autodesk University 2011 class and covers the experimental and computational analysis of short- and -fiber reinforced components during injection molding, along with thermal investigations of the micromolding process.