Plastic Part / Mold Design Automation Tools in SolidWorks

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Plastic Part / Mold Design Automation Tools
inSolidWorks 2005
Matt Lombard Trimech Solutions mlombard_at_trimech.c
om
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Outline

• Part design
• Complex shapes
• Draft and PL tools
• Analysis
• Curvature analysis
• Draft analysis
• Moldflow Express
• Mold design
• Built in tools
• SplitWorks
• MoldWorks

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SolidWorks

• If you havent seen SolidWorks in a while
• there are a lot of new tools to help part
  designers build and analyze better parts, and to
  help tooling designers create tooling quickly and
  accurately.
• If youve never seen SolidWorks
• It has one of the most complete toolsets youll
  find to help you solve many types of engineering
  design problems.
• If youre new to 3D design techniques
• Strap in, this is not your fathers Autocad, and
  its not just a bunch of pretty pictures, this
  is real engineering data which is usable in
  downstream analysis and manufacturing methods.

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Complex Shape Tools

• Plastics designers need complex shape tools
• SolidWorks is equally at home using solids or
  surfaces
• Multi-profile loft
• Guide curves
• End and side tangency controls
• Sweeps
• Path and guide curve sweeps
• Fill surfaces
• N-sided patches
• Edge tangency controls
• Control curves

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General tips for complex modeling

• Start with layout sketches or sketch pictures to
  trace around
• Look for Symmetry
• Avoid 2 or 3 sided lofts (use Fill Surface
  instead)
• Use splines for smoother faces
• Fit Splines stay constrained to line and arc
  geometry
• Dont be afraid of 3D splines
• Know how to use spline tangency
• Use evaluation tools
• Spline curvature comb
• Draft Analysis
• Undercut Analysis
• Zebra Stripes
• Thickness Analysis
• Curvature Analysis

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Loft Types
Loft to point
4 -sided
Edge Surface
Network Surface
3 -sided
Boundary Surface
Loft from face
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Loft Examples
Rectangle to a point
Loft to tangent point
Dont forget lofted cuts!
Loft between faces
Closed loft
Sheetmetal lofted bends
Flip convexity
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Sweep Types
Simple Sweep
Start End Section sweep
Advance sweep-twist control
Sweep to point
Variable sweep
Twist sweep
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Sweep Examples
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Other Surfacing Tools
Face Curves
Move Face
Delete Hole Delete Face Untrim Surface
Replace Face
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Fill Surface Examples
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Surface and Solid Interchangability
Layout major faces
Add detail
Outer skin
Solidify and shell
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Other Plastics Design Tools
Indent Assists in designing enclosures around
interior components. Creates a gap between the
component and the design part, and adds material
to surround the component.
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Draft and Parting Line
Parting Line draft with jogged PL
Step draft
Split PL at draft angle with ruled surface
Manually modeled draft
Silhouette Parting Line
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Split
Design the entire finished assembly as a single
part to maintain the integrity of the overall
shape
Split the overall shape into individual
components, add detail features
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Rib Tool
The rib tool in SolidWorks allows you to easily
create complex ribbing
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Plastics Analysis Tools
Geometry Analysis Look for knife edges, slivers,
small faces and short edges. Most useful for
trouble shooting shells, fillets and preparing
for CNC or mold building.
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Plastics Analysis Tools
Undercut analysis Finds undercut faces before
your tool builder does.
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Plastics Analysis Tools
Thickness analysis Finds thin or thick regions
in your plastic part which may affect moldability.
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Plastics Analysis Tools
Compare Use this tool to find the changes in
different versions of models sent to you by your
customers.
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Draft Analysis

• SolidWorks Draft Analysis will color the faces
  according to draft direction and amount
• Also classifies the faces and gives a face count
  for each classification

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Curvature Analysis

• SolidWorks curvature analysis allows you to
  troubleshoot models, and inspect for
  imperfections where there are very small radius
  faces
• Faces are color coded by curvature (curvature
  1/radius)

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Moldflow Express

• Moldflow Express is built right into SolidWorks
  2005
• Easy to use wizard
• Assign gate location
• Assign Material
• Moldflow Express will tell you if your part will
  fill, if it is well suited to analysis, and the
  estimated fill time

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Mold Tooling Tools

• SolidWorks has built-in mold tooling creation
  tools

Cavity Split Core Tooling Split Parting
Surface Shutoff Surfaces Parting Lines Make a new
folder Scale Move Face Draft Split Lines Undercut
Analysis Draft Analysis Moldflow Express
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SplitWorks

• For more serious split work, SplitWorks works

Plastic part
Parting Surface
Cavity and Core inserts with core pins
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SplitWorks

• SplitWorks automates tooling split work
• This could all be done manually using the built
  in SolidWorks tools
• If splitting a typical part would take 8 hours
  manually, Using SplitWorks, it should take about
  30 minutes

Electrode Data Electrode Information Edit
Electrode Add Electrode Tooling Split Create
Parting Surface Plug Shutoff Holes Split Part
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SplitWorks

• Mold design automation tools are not magic wands
• This will not replace you as a mold designer
• It will help you get more jobs out and get home
  at a reasonable time
• There will be some types of work that still have
  to be done manually such as passing shutoffs
• Some techniques such as core pins and side
  actions may be easier using native SolidWorks
  tools

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MoldWorks

• MoldWorks takes the inserts you created and
  builds the mold base around them.
• Select from all the standard mold base suppliers
  catalogs

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MoldWorks
Automatically create 2D plate drawings Interfer
ence detection Add Lifter Add Slide Add
user part Add a users defined plate Define the
new mold Define Coordinate system
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MoldWorks
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Thank You!