Introduction

The past decade has witnessed a widespread adoption of computer-aided engineering (CAE) software for simulating the injection molding process. Numerous companies have successfully used plastics CAE to optimize their design-to-manufacturing operations, saving thousands of dollars through a combination of reduced development and manufacturing costs, improved part quality, and shorter time to market. While the general benefits of plastics CAE have been well demonstrated and are now widely understood, there is much less understanding of the assumptions, quality, and applicability of specific analyses. Additionally, plastics CAE analysis is still a niche among many of the companies that perform it.

The knowledge gained from performing CAE analyses is rarely shared across the organization. The distributed nature of the industry contributes to this situation, creating a communication barrier that is compounded by the increasing globalization of the plastics marketplace. While tooling and manufacturing outsourcing is already all too common, a growing trend is the outsourcing of analysis work. Outsourcing brings its own set of challenges, including not knowing whether the analyses were run using the desired application, model, material, and process conditions.

Moldflow Communicator, a standalone Moldflow results visualization, comparison, and quantification system, addresses these communication and applicability issues and tackles the problem head-on. In its simplest form, Moldflow Communicator can be used to visualize and compare analysis results generated from both Moldflow Plastics Insight® (MPI®) and Moldflow Plastics Advisers® (MPA®) software. For MPI analyses, an additional benefit is the ability to quantify the quality of analyses performed. This is achieved through user-specified analysis quality criteria.

A key function of Moldflow Communicator is the visualization of analysis results. This requirement complements the current Moldflow analysis communication tools, which include project reports created in HTML, Microsoft Word or PowerPoint formats. These reports may include a combination of text, static images, and 2D animations.

Figure 1: HTML project reports may take a back seat
to the full information available in Communicator.

Says Keith Beattie, senior analyst at Fisher-Price, “Often I come across a project report of an analysis done by our overseas vendor, wherein I wished the image was created at a slightly different angle, thus allowing me to get a better perspective. Although I could ask them to provide the analysis model with results, file sizes are a concern, especially when you only want to review a couple of results.”

Through Moldflow Communicator, it is possible for extended team members to view analysis results dynamically and interactively on 3D models, without the need to access the complete Moldflow analysis product.

Figure 2: Moldflow Communicator allows anyone to
view analysis results dynamically and interactively.

Moldflow Communicator has extensive model manipulation and visualization capabilities, including the dynamic and incremental pan/zoom/rotate functions, standard view orientations, cutting planes, and so on. Moldflow Communicator also features a comprehensive selection of result displays, including XY plots; shaded, contour, scalar, vector, and tensor plots; displacement plots; and animations.

These tools enable users to clearly identify problems and validate solutions.

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