VERSION 7.3 IMPROVES RESULTS FOR PART AND MOLD DESIGNERS, LEADING TO GREATER MANUFACTURING EFFICIENCY
30 May 2006 - Moldflow Corporation

MPA helps design and manufacturing firms reduce time-to-market by giving early feedback on whether a part can be manufactured, before the expensive and time-consuming step of making a mold. MPA analysis often leads to lower production costs through material savings and shorter cycle times as well as improved part quality by resolving warpage and defects such as weld lines and sink marks. Customers often recover their investment in MPA from the savings in a single project.

MPA 7.3 includes key enhancements aimed at increasing robustness and accuracy of results, including:

Improved thickness calculations – Part thickness directly influences injection pressure, temperature, clamp force, weld lines, fiber orientation, and potential part warpage. MPA 7.3 has significant improvements in thickness calculation. As a result, the quality of filling results and warpage prediction has improved.

Validation of analysis results for thicker parts – MPA is known for fast, reliable analysis of thin-walled plastic parts, which comprise the vast majority of plastics parts in use today, although some parts have thick, chunky regions, which are more difficult to analyze. MPA 7.3 performs rigorous geometric analysis of plastics part designs, the results of which indicate an opportunity to reduce part thickness and consequently cooling time and cycle time for manufacturing the part. Otherwise, it indicates that the model is more suited for 3D analysis, which is offered in Moldflow Plastics Insight.

MPA product line manager Divya Mehra says: "MPA 7.3 adds value through more accurate filling and warpage results for certain geometries that were previously difficult to analyze, as well as offers advice on part thickness and its impact on analysis. These improvements help part and mold designers make more informed design and manufacturing decisions and become more efficient and competitive."
Amy Hirsch, Project Manager at Roush Manufacturing, who tested the Beta version of MPA 7.3, says, "Validating the part design for manufacturability is crucial for designing a good mold and producing high quality parts. MPA makes this process easy and efficient. With the core improvements I observed in MPA 7.3, I have even more confidence in the results and indeed the value of the product. "

According to Peter Clark of Minimould Ltd, "During my beta-testing of MPA 7.3, I analyzed a part that had been manufactured already, for which I knew the issues. The results obtained from MPA 7.3 match very closely with what I saw in practice. I am impressed with the fundamental improvements made in MPA 7.3. This makes MPA an even more valuable tool to predict manufacturing problems at the design stage."

http://www.moldflow.com

More News:
  • For May 2006
  • From Moldflow Corporation
  • For Polymer Flow Simulation