Much awaited decisions on plastic injection molded parts and its manufacturability was a question in the minds of design / analysis / manufacturing engineers. That’s no more a doubt in every engineers mind, of course those with out the knowledge of plastics and whether a part can be manufactured or what is the parts impact in the global scenario.
Many questions come into the mind of the engineers about manufacturing of a part:
- The part I’m designing can be properly processed – ( will there be any problems in the production process)
- Will there be any issues in molding – ( like thick and thin regions )
- Will there be any Undercuts in the model
- Any Draft angle issues
Of course there are many other areas which needs to be focused, but the aboves are ideal to start with
Further, cost of production is another major area after the manufacturing areas are accepted, this accounts to atleast 30 – 50 % of the entire cost a component. Areas like
- Mold Cost
- Material Cost
- Production Cost
Are focused here. Finally the impact of the part in the global scenario. This also an area that has obtained wide importance where people talk about the CARBON FOOTPRINT also if the component can be Recycled and quantum of Embodied water needs to be focused on.
All these seems to be a good way to talk but how to ensure these can be looked very seriously by a design engineer as he is the one who starts modeling and sets the dimensions for the CNC operator to go ahead with the part manufacturing.
Autodesk has launched a Autodesk Inventor Add – in for the above issues called Moldflow Krypton. Let’s see how this tool works
First visit the Autodesk Labs and download the tool – Moldflow Krypton for Autodesk Inventor 2011 / LT 2011 / Solidworks
See below the Figure of how moldflow krypton looks within Autodesk Inventor 2011
It consists of three meters
- Manufacturability
- Cost Efficiency
- Plastic Material Impact
Note:
- If a non-plastic material is selected, Moldflow Krypton is disabled
- Moldflow Krypton does not support multi-bodied parts
- Moldflow Krypton supports Inventor 2010, Inventor 2011, Inventor LT 2010, Inventor LT 2011, and SolidWorks 2009 SP3 or later
Let’s see the impact on a simple model and see what conclusions can be drawn 
Here, I found that the Manufacturability and Cost of production was not proper, while the Impact on the plastic material was Zero
So, I tried to make the following changes
- Provided Draft Angles
- Added Shell Command to make the thickness less
All my warnings disappeared from the Krypton Meter
Although, these seems to be okay but the tool needs to be improved to a greater extend by adding real time experiences gained from various design engineers and plastic molding engineers.
I’m sure, I got to know more using this Add-In, but I would like to see more features being added into this tool.
Happy Krypton Molding from CADProfessor Un till November 20, 2010:-)
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