Autodesk Simulation Moldflow Insight

[#1]

Dear Moldflow users,

It doesn’t happen often that I we get to welcome a completely new product to our product portfolio, but I’m very happy to announce the availability of Autodesk Simulation DFM (Design For Manufacturing), a new product for the plastic part designer. The product release coincided with NPE2012 in Orlando, where it got a lot of attention.

Autodesk Simulation DFM is completely based on Moldflow technology, but has a very different focus from out traditional products. Whereas the Autodesk Simulation Moldflow Adviser and Insight are tools help to decisions on how to manufacture a plastic part, Autodesk Simulation DFM is developed to assist the part designer in developing a viable plastic part that is cost effective and sustainable.

The product works directly within:

• Autodesk Inventor and Inventor LT,
• SolidWorks and
• Pro/ENGINEER Wildfire and Creo products

The product uses three simple indicators representing manufacturability, cost and sustainability. While the design is taking shape one step at a time, the indicators provide instantaneous feedback. When a design change is made that negatively impacts for instance manufacturability, the indicator may change color from green to yellow, or even red.

The designer can then find out the exact the cause and location of the problem and resolve it before fixing it late in the game when it becomes harder and more expensive. And let’s face it, even experienced designers can forget to add a draft angle or create an unnecessary undercut. Autodesk Simulation DFM can help avoid these basic design problems.

It can also show the underlying real time filling simulation, and you can explore how different gate locations affect weld line positions and sink marks, injection pressure. However this is not required to benefit from this tool.

To see the product in action and see how interactive it is, please have a look at this video.

Autodesk Simulation DFM does not interfere with the designers normal workflow and does not require any training. It does not require any knowledge of injection molding knowledge only a basic understanding of plastic part design.

Autodesk Simulation DFM can be purchased as a license by itself. However customers that have a license of Autodesk Simulation Moldflow Adviser 2013 on active subscription, can use this license to run Autodesk Simulation DFM 2013 free or charge To product is available for download from Subscription center under ‘Product Enhancements’ (look for ‘Autodesk Simulation DFM 2013 for Moldflow Adviser Subscription Customers’). To install the product you can use the serial number and product key from Autodesk Simulation Moldflow Adviser 2013.

[#2]

Here is an additional video demonstrating Autodesk Simulation DFM (link)

[#3]

Do Stand-alone versions of this exist?

I read that it works within....products we are not using.

When Moldflow was bought by Autodesk, it has been promised that Moldflow will remain a software which could be used without buying additional programs. How is the strategy for this on future developments?

Thanks

Michael

[#4]

Hi Michael,

At the moment DFM works with Inventor, Pro/E and SolidWorks. We are keenly aware of the fact that there are other CAD systems in which plastic parts are designed and that would greatly benefit from Autodesk Simulation DFM, and we are greatly interested in expanding the CAD systems Autodesk Simulation DFM supports. We are looking at 'fall back' option for CAD systems for which we currently don't support directly with DFM, but this is still early stage, so at the moment I cannot say much more about this. But, we are interested in providing direct support wherever possible.

As to the promise made by Autodesk you are referring to, I think Autodesk Simulation DFM is a prime example of how this promise is kept; Autodesk Simulation DFM is NOT a product that works within Autodesk Inventor products only, but that same license allows DFM to work with non-Autodesk products like SolidWorks or Pro/E as well.

Best regards,

Hanno