High-end users are finding that mid-range solid modelers, such as SolidWorks, have met their needs. Developed from the beginning as a native Windows application, SolidWorks is one of the 3D mechanical design software for Windows. Its unique combination of production-level power, ease-of-use, and affordability is unmatched. SolidWorks99, the seventh major release of the company's mechanical design software for Windows NT Windows 98 and beyond provides an increased power and function-ality in a fully integrated solid modeler. Familiar conventions such as point-and-click, drag-and-drop, cut-and-paste, and seamless data sharing with other Windows soft-ware lead to productivity gains. The ease-of-use without extensive training and at af-fordable pricing enables companies to install the system on every engineer's desktop. One of its applications is for mold design in the plastics industry. This latest applica-tion technology has added an entirely new dimension to the mold design process.
2. Injection mold design
Injection molding uses temperature-dependent changes in material properties to ob-tain the final shapes of discrete parts to finish or near-finish dimensions through the use of molds. In this type of manufacturing process, liquid material is forced to fill and solidify inside the cavity of the mold.
Firstly, the creation of a mold model requires a design model and a containing box. The design model represents the finished product, whereas the containing box repre-sents the overall volume of the mold components.
Injection mold design involves extensive empirical knowledge (heuristic knowledge) about the structure and the functions of the components of the mold. The typical pro-cess of a new mold development can be organized into four major phases: product de-sign, moldability assessment, detailed part design, insert/cavity design, and detailed mold design.
In Phase 0, a product concept is pulled together by a few people (usually a combi-nation of marketing and engineering). The primacy focus of Phase 0 is to analyze the market opportunity and strategic fit. In Phase I the typical process-related manufac-turing information is then added to the design to produce a detailed geometry. The conceptual design is transformed into a manufacturable one by using appropriate manufacturing information. In Phase II the parting direction and parting lines location are added to inspect the moldability. Otherwise, the part shape is again modified. In Phase III, the part geometry is used to establish the shape of the mold core and cavity that will be used to form the part. Generally shrinkage and expansions need to be con-sidered so that the molding will be the correct size and shape at the processing tem-perature. Gates, runners, overflows, and vents also need to be added. The association between geometric data and parting information is critical at this point. Phase IV is related to the overall mechanical structure of the mold including the connection of the mold to the injection machine, a mechanisms for filling, cooling, and for ejection and mold assembly.
3. Methodology
For the reasons described above, SolidWorks 99 has been used as the platform for the new mold design application. Fig.1 shows a Windows-native 3D injection mold design system compared with IMOLD. Users' applications can be created and run as a standalone exe file or as a User DLL or Extension DLL in SolidWorks. The Solid-Works Add-In Manager allows users to control which third party software is loaded at any time during their SolidWorks session. More than one package can be loaded at once, and the settings will be maintained across SolidWorks sessions.
Fig. 1 relationship among user applications, SoliderWorks,Unigraphics and parasolid
3.1. SolidWorks
SolidWorks recently emerged as one of the 3D product design software for Win-dows, providing one of the most powerful and intuitive mechanical design solution in its class. In SolidWorks, parts are created by building a "base feature” and adding other features such as bosses, cuts, holes, fillets, or shells. The base feature may be an extrusion, revolution, swept profile, or loft. To create a base feature, Sketch a two-dimensional geometric profile and move the profile through space to create a volume. Geometry can be sketched on construction planes or on planar surfaces of parts. 三维塑料注射模具设计系统英文文献和中文翻译(2):http://www.youerw.com/fanyi/lunwen_12294.html