Mold cavity configuration: one mold with four cavities
Product size: 57X25X27mm
Mold design focus: Left and right sides of product are formed with sliders. Slider stroke and slider size will limit mold size. Considering molding, it is hoped that aluminum liquid can enter four mold cavities at the same time. It is hoped that FLOW-3D (x) can be used to optimize flow channel size design.

 

According to size of slider stroke and slider/locking block and other parts, first complete mold configuration diagram. Since slider position and stroke have limited mold size, position of feed point is limited and will not be changed.
This case is drawn using NX. FLOW-3D (x) can directly read NX drawings as a reference for optimization.

FLOW-3D (x) can directly read NX prt drawing files, directly capture feature parameters and perform calculations. Therefore, we made some modifications during flow channel design, changed to using stretching + left and right offset dimensions to establish basic thickness of flow channel (later plus draft and fillet features) to reduce possible errors when creating drawing.
FLOW-3D (x) has no restrictions on reading NX prt drawings. As long as it is a drawing feature (including sketch features), it can be put into program for optimization calculation.

 

In order to reduce amount of calculation, left-right symmetry of drawing is used for calculation.
Following are key points of settings:
NX prt (runner.prt + runner.stl) must be placed in same FLOW-3D directory as other drawings cavity.stl
Set center of casting to be symmetrical
Create two flux surfaces at inlet end of flow channel. They are flux surface 1 & flux surface 2
Calculation result will capture flow through flux surface

Workflow

 

Following is an explanation of above figure

Because when NX drawing file feature is created, offset of a single flow channel is two values (+X and -X), in order to simplify subsequent calculation, EXCEL node is used to simplify data.

Use EXCEL table to turn two sets of input values into four sets of output values.
D2=A2. D3=-A2
E2=B2. E3=-B2
In this way, when performing subsequent optimization calculations, two sets of values can be input and four sets of values can be output.

FLOW-3D (x) can directly load NX prt files and read all features (including sketch features). Put values to be filled in input end, and change output end to stl drawing file. NX part node can read parameters and output stl file of correct size to FLOW-3D for execution.

 

FLOW-3D simulation node can load prepin files, drag runner.stl to input option, so that FLOW-3D simulation node can automatically load different drawings and execute.

 

FLOW-3D post-processing node allows users to select results to be evaluated. In this case, users need to intercept flow rates of flux surface 1 and flux surface 2 at 1.4e-02 seconds and 8.4e-03 seconds, then send these four sets of data to backend for execution.

 

Use Math node to organize data and create two equations, namely flow difference of flux surface 1 and flow difference of flux surface 2. As long as values of two are confirmed to be smaller, results should meet expectations.

 

Connect all nodes with arrows. R represents input data. There are two parameters in total, which correspond to offset of flow channel. V represents output data, which represents flow difference through flux surface at two different time points.

After workflow setting is completed, FLOW-3D (x) can be executed. First, create a Task.

 

Input item: Set the offset to a real number change from 4 to 8.
Output item: Set to minum.
Budget(s): Set number of execution groups.
Save options: Set to save all results.

 

All 20 groups of results will be stored in project directory. The better results will be displayed in white text on a green background.

 

Sort data after execution, and yellow column represents better results.
Better sorted graph is as follows. After manual interpretation, item16 will be better than other groups.

 

Best result vs. worst result
Best: item16
Worst: item13

1) Using FLOW-3D (x) with CAD features to adjust optimization parameters can save users time of adjusting dimensions, changing drawings, creating configuration files, and organizing results each time. Users only need to establish a suitable workflow to let computer complete optimization parameter adjustment work.
2) Users can establish their own workflow based on experience. In this case, if flux surface at multiple locations is set to determine flow rate at the beginning, it is also a new approach to use minimum standard deviation to help find optimal value.
3) Using FLOW-3D (x) to reduce users' boring and repeated settings, improve work efficiency is a new design process that can also maximize function of software.