Moldflow launches plastic packaging design software
software that it claims will help manufacturers achieve more
advanced packaging designs in less time.
According to the company, filling and packing analyses run up to 40 per cent faster than in previous versions of the software. Also new are a fast fill solver and options to control the opening and closing of sequential valve gates.
In addition, Moldflow believes that the software, called MPI 5.0 gives processors more options than ever before. It contains a strong focus on 3D technology, pre- and post-processing productivity improvements, and is packed with a range of customer driven enhancements.
For example, the software is claimed to offer the world's largest database of its kind with more than 7,800 materials characterised for use in plastic computer aided engineering (CAE) analysis. MPI 5.0 offers 19 distinct modules that can be used to simulate nine unique moulding processes.
The company believes that these features represent a significant leap forward in computer-aided design. The software also provides a broad range of modelling and meshing enhancements and tools that reduce the time required to create an analysis-ready model.
In addition, the product offers enhanced geometry troubleshooting diagnostics, clean-up tools, and an automatic mesh fix wizard. User interface enhancements help companies increase productivity with new tools for comparing project studies, synchronising result selection and result properties and displaying and manipulating models in less time.
"The addition of corner effects to the warpage analysis and the new core deflection analysis will have a significant positive impact on our development of new products and moulding technologies," said Paul van Huffel, senior engineer at Cascade Engineering and MPI 5.0 beta user.
"Our customers stand to gain substantially from our use of this improved toolset. The new user-defined keys will also be a significant time-saver for us internally, thus allowing Cascade Engineering to get more work done in less time. MPI 5.0 will definitely help us to be more effective and more productive."
New 3D innovations help users simulate the gas-assisted injection moulding process and evaluate the effect of polymer or metal inserts on the cooling and warpage of the plastic part. In addition, the software helps predict core deflection, packing and warping of thermoset materials and dynamic paddle-shift in the microchip encapsulation process.
Other enhancements include more robust and efficient 3D mesh generation and a new 3D probe result for examining result values through the part thickness.
"MPI 5.0 delivers significant improvements on three fronts: reduction in modelling time; reduction in analysis time; and new features," said MPI 5.0 beta user Gal Sherbelis, owner of GS Design.
"For example, the new mesh repair wizard goes a significant way towards complete model creation. It automatically removes many problems, reducing the amount of sites in the model that require manual clean-up. I found an approximately 25 percent reduction in analysis time on large Fusion models with and without fibre analysis."
