Just because you designed a plastic part, doesn’t mean it can be manufactured at scale. Product design has a significant impact on the cost and timing of part manufacturing. In this class, you’ll learn how to identify and address costly manufacturing issues with Injection Molding Simulation in Autodesk Fusion 360.

Do you need to take a concept and make it a reality? Does that reality include injection-molded parts? Do you need to get your design reviewed and approved quickly? If the answer to even 2 out of 3 of these questions is "yes," you should attend this class. We will also look at answers to these questions, and at an even more important question: How can we make changes on an overall assembly's shape while still developing individual piece details? To do this we will explore workflows within Product Design Suite software and add a dash of Simulation DFM software for good measure.

This class reviews powerful analysis techniques that bring manufacturing knowledge together with detailed material modeling in order to perform comprehensive and accurate analysis of your parts, both as manufactured and in use. In addition, powerful optimization techniques allow the choice of the best gate location for your parts, and avoid over design of your parts, using a process of integrative optimization.

Designing plastic parts can take up a lot of time and be prone to errors. In this session, you’ll learn how to use Autodesk Fusion 360 Product Design Extension to automate time-consuming and repetitive tasks using manufacturing-aware features such as Boss, Snap Fit, Web, Rib, and Rest. We’ll demonstrate the best practices for using plastic part rules to control your design and capture know-how for easy creation, editing, and reuse. In addition, we’ll share tips and tricks for creating complex geometric patterns and use presets.

Attend this class to learn how to design and build a better plastic part by using all the services in Sim 360 Moldflow cloud-based simulation software.

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.

Fiat is one of the top car manufacturers in the world and is using the power of simulation extensively in their product development. In this class, we will show how simulation technology can be used to validate design and quantify defects that can show up during manufacturing and final assembly. We will visualize production defects in plastic parts using Autodesk® Moldflow® and Autodesk Showcase®.

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.

Designing parts for the injection molding process often relies on experience and generic guidelines. Determining the needed geometry for design features can be very time consuming. In this session, we’ll look at how we can streamline this process using Autodesk Fusion 360 software and its extensions. Autodesk Fusion 360 Product Design Extension includes tools for the quick addition of common features, such as snaps and bosses, to Autodesk Fusion 360 parts. Will these features work? Will the snap fail during initial assembly? Will there be sink marks if a boss is molded as designed? Autodesk Fusion 360 Simulation Extension tools for stress analysis and mold-filling simulation help answer these key questions. Now we can catch and correct potential issues early in the design cycle, when there’s still time to react and costs of changes are relatively low.

The formation of weld lines during the injection molding process can be practically unavoidable for most complex plastic parts. A weld line—defined by the mating of the free surfaces of 2 separate flow fronts—can reduce the aesthetic appeal of the part and often reduces the structural integrity of the part at the mating surface. In this presentation, results from a  Moldflow Insight software analysis are used to determine the weld surface locations, and Advanced Material Exchange software is used to map the results from Moldflow Insight software to the structural simulation. The strength reduction is taken into account in a nonlinear finite element analysis using Helius PFA software to accurately predict the crack initiation and growth of a mechanically loaded electrical isolating rod disconnector.

Digital design validation—or digital DVAC as we call it at Rivian (more commonly known as AAR in industry)—is a process during which defective injection-molded plastic parts are analyzed, textured, and visualized to real-world accuracy to set expectations throughout the design cycle. Implemented early in the design process, digital DVAC allows visually problematic parts to be caught and fixed before any production tools or prototype parts have been produced, significantly saving cost and development times. This process further enables designers and engineers to work together to reduce the visibility of such defects through either design-based texture changes or part geometry fixes, improving the overall perceived quality and craftsmanship of the end product.

Simulation DFM software loads inside your 3D design tool to give you near-real-time feedback on the quality of your plastic part as you design it. Simulation DFM software reviews things such as nominal wall thickness, draft angle, material cost, part recyclability, sink marks, fill patterns, and more, to grade your part in the categories of manufacturability, cost, and environmental impact. In this class we will look at how we can analyze the part files during the design process. We'll also investigate the effect a change may have on the ability to design the most efficient part while cutting down on design errors for molded parts.

The market for plastic composites is increasing. All types of reinforcements are found, from short to long to continuous fibers. Long-fiber-reinforced plastics can be processed with injection molding and exhibit good performance in energy absorption. This makes them interesting for crash applications for the automotive industry. However, moving to long fibers also means moving towards complexity. Isolated long fibers exhibit a wavy shape, changing stiffness properties of the composite. Straight fibers are found in bundles, influencing the failure of the material. Injection molding of long fibers can lead to fiber breakage. This has to be taken into account when designing plastic parts using simulation. This class provides insight into an approach using DIGIMAT™, with the goal to provide a material model for long-fiber-reinforced plastics. We will present investigations of the material with first approaches to couple structural mechanics with Autodesk Simulation Moldflow software, including prediction of fiber breakage.

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 presentation will introduce recent and current research topics related to the Autodesk Moldflow injection molding simulation solvers, including the prediction of final part shape after molding, the behavior of the polymer melt during cavity filling, pack and cooling and the prediction of visual defects which may results in the molded part. In particular, improvements in the warp prediction accuracy for 3D model geometries by making use of measured shrinkage calibration data will be discussed, as well the elimination of model size restrictions for 3D warp analysis. Improvements in accuracy of Dual-Domain corner effects warpage will be demonstrated along with options for examining plastic part deformation after assembly.

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.

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."

The success of a new product launch relies heavily on the ability of molding thermoplastic parts within specified tolerances and successfully assembling them into a functional product. Building a mold with the correct mold-shrinkage values is crucial for a given plastic material. Currently, a toolmaker guesses the shrinkage value from the range published by a material supplier before cutting steel. Thus, choosing one value at the mid-point of the range results in a part with vastly different shrinkage values in the flow, cross-flow, and transverse directions. Subsequently, many compromises may have to be made in order to qualify the part and approve the tool before routine production. We have been working with Moldflow software to improve and fine-tune the material testing and plastic-part simulation in order to predict accurate shrinkage values to eliminate the guesswork and make more-educated decisions before ordering tools. This session features Moldflow Insight and Moldflow.

Autodesk CAD, CAM, and CAE Solutions can be applied to the design and manufacture of high-quality molds to produce visually and dimensionally correct plastic parts at minimum cycle time. Moldflow tools ensure optimum mold design based on such considerations as best feed and cooling system placement and sizing. Designing molds for balanced and easy cavity filling will reduce mold stresses and extend mold life. Autodesk CAM tools, from Delcam, facilitate efficient design and manufacture of precision molds using subtractive and additive methods. Additive methods (also known as 3D printing) enable the manufacture of innovative, complex, and lighter-weight components in various applications. Netfabb tools can automatically generate lighter-weight designs, and then optimize component orientation, deflections, and supports to make the additive manufacturing process successful. This class will show the workflow utilizing the Moldflow, CAM, and Netfabb software systems to ensure right-first-time manufacturing.

Do you design injection molded parts? How do you know if they are manufacturable? Are they cost effective to produce? Will they be high quality? Learn how Fusion 360's can help you answer these questions in this Hands-on-Lab.