Altair Inspire Mold Transforms Injection Molding

Altair has launched Altair Inspire Mold, an end-to-end solution for simulating injection molding. Inspire Mold offers fast, capable tools with solver performance to make better design decisions earlier, reduce costs, speed time-to-market, and optimize the quality and manufacturability of finished parts, the company says.

“Inspire Mold embodies everything we believe simulation should be. It puts designers and engineers firmly in control of faster, more intelligent and intuitive evaluation of injection molded plastic parts,” says James Dagg, chief technical officer, Altair. “Inspire Mold reduces the costs and delays traditionally found in the slow and laborious processing of design iterations, as well as the building and reworking of prototype molds.”

Manufacturability of new components can now be evaluated at the outset of the development process, and the risk of defects such as warping, sink marks, and short shots are mitigated before any costly investments are made in molds. Design iterations are completed faster, and fewer are needed before an optimal solution is identified. Scrap, tooling, and rework costs are slashed, and there are no requirements for specialized, GPU-computing hardware.

Design iterations are completed faster, and fewer are needed before an optimal solution is identified. Image courtesy of Altair.

Other key features of Inspire Mold include:

• Optimized user experience—product designers and engineers can easily conduct virtual testing, validation, correction and optimization of molding designs via an intuitive, five-step workflow.
• Fast, next generation 3D technology—experimental approximations of traditional 2.5D solvers are eliminated. Support for advanced physics empowers advanced and novice users with deeper insights and understanding.
• Access to materials data—data for 60 materials is embedded in Inspire Mold and the Altair Material Data Center (MDC) will soon be integrated, allowing MDC license holders direct, immediate access to reliable, high-quality material data.
• Comprehensive end-to-end solution—technology stretches from initial design through to material mapping of reinforced engineering polymers, analyzing and optimizing the structural and fatigue performance of complex parts.

Inspire Mold joins Altair’s existing Inspire manufacturing simulation offerings including casting, forming, mold-filling, extrusion and additive manufacturing.

For more information about Inspire Mold, click here. 

Sources: Press materials received from the company and additional information gleaned from the company’s website.