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. You will learn how use Product Design Extension to automate time consuming and repetitive tasks using manufacturing aware features such as Boss, Snap Fit, Web, Rib and Rest. We will 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 will 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.

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 will look at how this process can be streamlined by using Fusion 360 and its Extensions. The Product Design Extension includes tools for quickly adding common features, such as snaps and bosses, to 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? Fusion 360’s Simulation Extension tools for stress analysis and mold filling simulation help answer these key questions. Now potential issues can be caught and corrected early in the design cycle, when there is still time to react and costs of changes are relatively low.

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®.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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."

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.

Electronics can be difficult to design due to the reliance on various assembly components. Add to that the occasional need to swap between various software applications when designing specific components, such as the PCB, it can become difficult to get everything sync’d up and a more wholistic picture of the design. This class will showcase how a part designer can use Fusion 360 for everything from part design, PCB design, and even manufacturability.

During Autodesk University 2021, we shared a developed workflow for how designers can bring data together through designing the part, the PCB, and even how to manufacture the plastic components. With the complexity of electronic part designs, there are often various aspects that need to be considered for the part to both work and perform as expected. In this class, we will demonstrate how the Fusion 360 workflow has matured to incorporate mechanical engineering aspects to smooth this product design workflow. We will use a sample product, the Autodesk University Digital Badge, to demo how to integrate mechanical design requirements and simulation into the product design process.