Due to increasing requirements, such as shorter time or new regulatory requirements, companies must adapt their development processes to produce high-performance products that are weight-, material- and cost-efficient. This can be achieved with innovative software tools such as Altair Inspire, which enables engineers to quickly produce efficient designs that are reliable in function and manufacturability.
Typical casting defects such as shrinkage, porosity or air entrapment are a big challenge to designers of cast products. While downstream corrections can be quite expensive, casting simulation with modern software tools enables designers to visualise and avoid these defects, thus ensuring manufacturing feasibility.
Shrinkage, porosity, air entrapment, cold shuts and mould degradation are defects that can typically occur in the casting process. They certainly pose a big challenge to designers of cast products. Additionally, as anywhere in product development, product designers of cast products feel the growing pressure to deliver better cast products that cost and weigh less. Hence, in order to create next-generation products, manufacturing feasibility has to be part of the design process. While innovative designs demand designers to evaluate their designs early, assessing whether a concept design of a cast product can be manufactured is a challenging task and traditionally requires a simulation expert. The good news is: Thanks to modern software solutions such as Altair Inspire Cast designers are now able to skip this extra time-consuming and costly step in the development process.
Simulation as a design tool in five easy steps toward an efficient design
Altair Inspire Cast is a software tool that enables designers to gain valuable information about their designs early in the product development cycle without the need for expert knowledge. Offering the complete casting simulation in five easy steps through the highly intuitive user experience, Inspire Cast allows designers and foundry engineers to visualise and correct typical casting defects, validate their design, and improve the quality of the final cast product. Casting simulation with Altair Inspire is fast, easy, affordable and it provides accurate results enabling designers to:
• Assess whether a concept design can be manufactured
• Compare concept designs to others with respect to manufacturing
• Reduce manufacturing tryouts by creating design guidelines
• Assess placements of gates, vents, risers and runners
• Validate the detailed design near the end of the development cycle
Experience how to create components with generative design and achieve manufacturability using design relevant parameters such as: Ensuring mould filling and solidification in high pressure die-casting, investment casting, tilt pouring, low pressure die-casting, gravity sand and gravity die-casting.
For further details contact Altair Engineering on TEL: 021 831 1500 or visit www.altair.co.za