The advanced injection moulding software suite

Edited by the Engineeringtalk editorial team Dec 31, 2001

In a major development, Moldflow Plastics Insight (MPI) 3.0 integrates the MPI and C-MOLD 2000 product families into one advanced injection moulding software suite

The new version of Moldflow Plastics Insight (MPI) 3.0 is perhaps the largest development in the company's history.

MPI 3.0 reflects the integration of the Moldflow and C-MOLD product development teams and the integration of the MPI and C-MOLD 2000 product families into one advanced injection moulding software suite.

MPI is designed to predict and eliminate potential plastics manufacturing problems before they occur.

Using advanced process simulation tools, it addresses a broad range of plastic moulding manufacturing issues and design geometries.

MPI 3.0 offers an intuitive approach for managing projects from start to finish, saving time in creating meshes and performing more in-depth analyses.

Major enhancements include: New MPI/Synergy User Interface Module:- Used for model preparation, meshing, mesh editing, model validation, job setup, job control, results post-processing and report generation, the new MPI/Synergy interface combines powerful meshing and mesh editing tools.

In addition, a new layer system helps users easily edit complex models.

The option of moving elements manually or automatically to different layers allows users to handle very large, complicated meshes.

The new interface supports all thermoplastic and thermoset analysis modules of the MPI and C-MOLD product lines, as well as mid-plane, Fusion and 3D tetrahedral mesh models.

New Meshing and Mesh Editing Tools:- New mesh diagnostic tools help users quickly and easily visualize mesh quality in areas such as aspect ratio, overlapping elements, connectivity, thickness, free edges, and occurrence number, speeding the user through the design validation process.

Real time updates provide data as errors are corrected.

Unique to this feature is the ability to control the number of elements created through the thickness of a part.

MPI/Fusion Enhancements: MPI 3.0 offers the ability to display and change the thickness of a Fusion mesh directly within the user interface on either a global or local basis.

In addition, Fusion technology has been extended to support the MPI/Reactive Moulding, MPI/Microchip Encapsulation and MPI/Underfill Encapsulation analysis modules.

MPI/3D Enhancements: Flow simulation for MPI/3D has been enhanced to include inertia effects to predict the flow imbalance of symmetrical cavities and to include additional results for clamp force and shear rate for beams.

In addition, MPI/3D now works with MPI/Reactive Moulding to simulate the injection moulding of thermoset materials.

Improved CAD Interfaces and Geometry Representation: The integration of a new NURBS based geometry system to the Moldflow Design Link (MDL) module provides the ability to more accurately import and represent CAD geometry from standard sources such as IGES, STEP, and Parasolid.

New Design of Experiments (DOE) Manager:- The Design of Experiments Manager automatically sets up and performs a sequence of DOE analyses, varying user-specified parameters, and also allows quick access to the results data.

Expanded Materials Database:- MPI 3.0 provides the combined Moldflow and C-MOLD materials database that includes properties for over 7500 unique grades of plastic resins.

MPI 3.0 is supported on Intel Pentium-based Windows PC's, and UNIX-based systems from Hewlett Packard, Sun, Silicon Graphics and IBM.

New for MPI 3.0 is the support of the AMD Athlon Windows-based PC workstations.

Moldflow offers a variety of new training options for MPI 3.0, including traditional instructor-led classes and live web-based online training, and self-paced, web-based classes.