Embark on an exciting journey into the world of creating a fully functional simulation racing steering wheel, using Autodesk Fusion capabilities: Design, electronics, simulation, and manufacturing—all within one seamless solution. Witness the collaborative efforts of global industry experts and suppliers as they bring this project to life. Join us and experience innovation in motion!

Have you attended our Autodesk University Factory Live Experience? Want to learn how we created some of the parts using Autodesk Fusion 360 software? In this session, the team that helped design the keypad for the Autodesk University Factory will walk through how Autodesk Simulation tools can help you along your design journey from concept to production. Learn if Fusion 360 injection molding simulation is right for you, or if you need Moldflow injection molding simulation to get your part production ready.

Selecting the correct injection molding simulation software can be challenging when designing plastic parts. This session will review the various Autodesk simulation tools available on the market today, including Fusion Injection Molding Simulation, Moldflow Adviser, and Moldflow Insight. This in-depth comparison will help you understand which injection molding simulation tool is right for your needs based on your objectives and desired outcomes.

This presentation will focus on simulation techniques used to compare traditional hurling stick material and performance against a composite redesign. We used several Autodesk tools—including Fusion 360 software, Netfabb software, Moldflow, and Autodesk Nastran software—to evaluate and optimize the performance of the composite structure.

Generative design is a hot topic, but existing manufacturing methods like casting and injection molding seem to be hiding behind the curtains. This presentation will focus less so on additive manufacturing and more so on mass manufacturing methods currently being used industry wide. By leveraging existing generative design technology with casting and injection molding best practices, we can re-shape how current product design for manufacturing workflows can be achieved. By demonstrating the capabilities of new generative design technology, this talk will expose the new feature enhancements showcasing a realistic approach to the manufacturing and product design world which can be implemented into product design and manufacturing workflows today.

This class will describe the benefits of using PowerShape software and Moldflow Insight to model and simulate a conformal cooling tool. With 3D printing on the rise, conformal cooling is becoming a more widely available option to create cooling channels in metal in order to more evenly cool a plastic component during the molding process. Utilizing the modeling power of PowerShape to build a mold with channels following the geometry of the plastic part-and then validating the channels using Moldflow-can save time and money by eliminating the need to 'build it and hope it works."

As General Motors relies more on Autodesk® Simulation Moldflow® software for upfront design for manufacturability, it has become apparent that the capability to accurately predict location and relative quality of meld lines is essential to eliminate costly tool re-work—work that is necessary to resolve surface quality and/or part performance issues. A research project was initiated under the auspices of continuous improvement to study the effect of mesh density—relative to obstruction size—on the ability of Moldflow to accurately predict position, length, and quality of a meld line. This class will review the findings of this research by using case studies to illustrate the impact of poor meld-line predictions on tooling strategy and explain how these tooling decisions could have been avoided through meshing technique. Proper mesh density for the accurate prediction of meld-line location and quality will be the next best practice enhancement to the GM Moldflow Specification, GMW16355.

Analysts working with Autodesk® Simulation Moldflow® software must not only run quality simulations, but also interpret the results and present them clearly. This class is about looking beyond the default plots and customizing the results to improve result clarity for yourself and your audience. Time permitting, you will have a chance to show and discuss your favorite custom plots.

Different composite materials have been in used for many years in the automotive industry to create components that have unique characteristics, such as being strong and light. The trend in using composite materials is accelerating to meet lightweighting requirements to meet the next generation of fuel economy standards. An interesting lightweighting application combines the use of continuous fiber composite material with injection molding. The continuous fiber composite material forms a lightweight shell, while the necessary support structure can be created by overmolding it with a fiber-filled plastic. This so-called hybrid technique can create extremely lightweight strong parts that can be manufactured in large volumes. Autodesk® Simulation Moldflow® plastic injection molding simulation software can help with the design and engineering efforts for this process.

Shear imbalance is a tooling gremlin that was often ignored until exposed by John Beaumont about 10 years ago. The causes can be subtle but the problems that result are not. In the last few releases, Autodesk has significantly improved the capability for Autodesk Simulation Moldflow software to evaluate shear imbalance. Last year at AU, Beaumont provided an excellent technical presentation on the subject which resulted in those techniques being adopted by 3D Shapes on projects. Evaluating shear imbalance benefited our customers. We hope by highlighting key points for properly evaluating shear rate and and looking at recent examples, we can now help you benefit from these capabilities too.

This class will review new functionality in Moldflow Insight software and discuss current research directions in the development of Moldflow Insight software. Capabilities covered will include multi-shot overmolding and mold cooling; composite overmolding; the effect of fiber orientation on viscosity; the effect of material degradation on viscosity; microcellular foaming; improved fiber orientation and fiber breakage calculations; and user routines for viscosity, core-shift and more. There will also be an update of research collaborations in the area of injection molding simulation research.

Sometimes after optimizing a design for manufacturing, unexpected issues can occur. This was the situation with a recent case. An existing design had issues with excessive pressure, flash, and sink. The apparent root cause was a premature freeze off. Design iterations were analyzed and a particular option was used and was thought to have solved the issue. However, after the initial success the manufacturing process started to create cosmetic issues. Cosmetic defects can be much more challenging to troubleshoot. This presentation describes this case study, some old techniques, and recently added capabilities ( Moldflow Insight 2016 software), such as path lines.

The University of Bradford has been using Autodesk Simulation Moldflow software for many years to investigate key injection-molding effects such as fiber orientation, residual stresses, warpage, post-injection product performance, heat transfer, and feature replication. This class builds on our Autodesk University 2011 class and covers the experimental and computational analysis of short- and -fiber reinforced components during injection molding, along with thermal investigations of the micromolding process.

In this class we will discuss the new capability to map fiber orientations and material properties from Simulation Moldflow software to structural finite element analysis (FEA). We will also cover how to use Simulation Composite Analysis software to simulate nonlinear material behavior of the fiber-filled material.

Do you use CAD models with Autodesk Moldflow products? If yes, then don't miss this class. We will discuss how to leverage Autodesk Inventor® Fusion technology as the front-end modeler and idealization tool for Autodesk Moldflow. We will show how to use Inventor Fusion to import CAD data, then edit and simplify it in preparation for Autodesk Moldflow simulation. We will discuss the techniques to simplify a part model and make design changes, such as modifying the part thickness and adding ribs, using Inventor Fusion. We will also discuss the alternative workflow of starting the simulation process in Autodesk Moldflow Insight, launching Inventor Fusion from Autodesk Moldflow Insight to modify geometry, and then rerunning the solver analysis in Autodesk Moldflow Insight.

In this class we will introduce the basic concepts and principles behind the Application Programming Interface (API) and show how you can use it to enhance the capabilities of Moldflow Insight. The class will introduce the API functionality and conventions through a series of scripts that highlight common tasks completed with the API. Key areas covered will include creating custom plots and results, creating and examining mesh quality, exporting results, and interfacing with Microsoft Excel and Microsoft PowerPoint. The lab will consist of a mixture of lectures and hands-on exercises to ensure that both the theoretical and practical aspects of building API scripts are covered. No previous programming knowledge is required to take this lab.

The fiber orientation as a result of the injection molding process have a high impact on the mechanical behavior that the manufactured product will have. Using different material models will help in understanding the latest improvements on the fiber oreination prediction, and considerations that are needed in order to have a better performance. By having the link between rheology and structural simulations, the material properties can be related with the fiber orientation in order to have a mechanical model that can be closer to reality. Autodesk Helius makes this link and helps in bringing the reality to simulation.

Detailed analysis of mold designs is becoming increasingly necessary as advanced mold technologies are adopted. Conformal mold cooling is a cooling technique that aims to offer optimal cooling conditions exactly where you need them. The technology has been around for many years, but has become a real option now with the better and cheaper ways to manufacture conformal cooling cores. Hot runner systems are very commonly used in plastic injection molding. Although these are simple systems on the surface, what actually happens inside the hot runners and how they lose heat into the mold can be quite complex. With the Cool (FEM) functionality inside Autodesk Simulation Moldflow software coupled with Autodesk® Simulation CFD software, you now have the capability to model even the most complicated conformal geometries and hot runners in full three-dimensional detail of all components. This process enables you to evaluate and optimize the hot runner and conformal cooling design to achieve an optimal mold design and injection molding process.

In this session, you’ll have the opportunity to take the Moldflow Associate and Moldflow Professional level certifications. You will also have the opportunity to discuss your use of Moldflow software with expert Moldflow software trainers. Exams will be held Monday, November 14, in room San Polo 3405, Level 3, from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.

This class is about the experiments and simulations related to the microcellular injection molding. The experiments are part of the research done at the Microcellular Plastics Manufacturing Laboratory at the University of Toronto. We will present 3 topics related to the experiments. The first will be on the visualization studies on the bubble nucleation and growth. We will examine the effects of process conditions. The second will be on the use of mold opening (core-back) for the microcellular injection molding. The third will be on the effects of bubbles on the fiber orientation in the microcellular injection molding. We will use some of the experimental results (such as bubble nucleation/growth and the mold-opening experiment) in the simulation with  Moldflow Insight software. We will discuss the correlation between the experimental and simulation results, and we will also present some case studies related to microcellular injection molding and core-back processes.