Mold Design - Filling a Cup

[DuncanAnderson]

The company where I currently works designs and manufactures support cabling and the end fixings.

The cable is inserted through a hole in the bottom on the end fixing which leads to a tapered cavity.

The strands of the cable and then splayed or flared out.

This tapered cavity with the splayed/flared strands is then filled with molten solder or another molten metal or a liquid polymer which then either cool or cure.

When a load is applied the taper means the clamping force is increased and together with the natural bonding between the filler material and the strands/cavity wall means there is a very strong bond that increases as the load increases.

What I want to know before I start wasting too much time doing investigations is whether Inventor's Mold Design environment will allow me to fill a modelled tapered cavity with splayed/flared strands to the relevant filling?

If it is possible, what is the work flow?

If not, will it be possible in the future?

I know I can produce this from a derived part using the functions available when deriving an assembly, but I would hope that Inventor could do this automatically within Mold Design environment.

[MingweiGao]

Can you post some pictures to show your mold design?

[DuncanAnderson]

Can't at the moment.

Had some problems modelling.

As soon as I get something that is representative I will do.

[DuncanAnderson]

Sorry it has taken so long to reply, been busy.

Hope the attached image helps.

This is a helf section slice through both cup and strands

I want to fill the cup so that the strands are clearly seen when sliced.

[MingweiGao]

Hello,

Per you said - “I want to fill the cup so that the strands are clearly seen when sliced.”, I guess you don’t want to do the mold for a specific part. Because of Mold Design module is focused on the mold of plastic part, so I have no idea of using Mold Design module to help you fill the cavity automatically in your case.

Sorry for the late reply for my vacation.

[DuncanAnderson]

I did this by placing a dummy part, deriving the assembly with everything subtracted from the dummy, suppressing the link, making the dummy invisible and then inserting the derived part.

It would be really helpful if Inventor could do this a bit more automatically.