Defining plastic part properties
Categorize your plastic part components and define their materials to allow the SimForm app solver to identify them.
Use the Plastic Part card to identify mold elements as plastic parts and define the plastic part material. You can also categorize elements as cold runners. This allows the solver to identify the plastic part and accounts for its material properties in the thermal analysis.
Defining plastic part materials
In SimForm, you can choose the material from a list that contains widely used materials for mold cooling applications or define a new material that helps you to meet the specific needs of any plastic molding project.
You can manually add materials one at a time or upload a CSV file to import multiple materials at once. You can also copy the properties of a material to modify them. The added materials are available in all future projects from your account and all added users within your company account.
To define a new material, you must provide the properties listed in the following table.
| Physical Property | Unit |
|---|---|
| Density | kg/m3 |
| Thermal conductivity | W/(m·°C) |
| Specific heat | J/(kg·°C) |
You must also provide the temperature values described in the following table in °C.
| Temperature Type | Description |
|---|---|
| Temperature | The temperature of the molten plastic at injection |
| Ejection temperature | The temperature at which the plastic solidifies |
| Mold temperature | The target temperature of the mold cavity surface when in contact with the plastic |
The uploaded CSV file must follow a format similar to this example:
"Name","Temperature","Specific Heat","Density","Thermal Conductivity","Mold Temperature","Ejection Temperature"
"Polyphenylene Oxide (PPO)","100","1300","1100","0.2","30","60"
"Polyetheretherketone (PEEK)","150","1430","1320","0.25","180","200"
"Polystyrene (PS)","90","1300","1050","0.16","40","60"You must ensure that all values are provided in the required units, and may need to convert units if necessary. You can find these properties from the material supplier or databases.
You can download the added materials in a CSV file to share it within your organization or to upload to a SimForm project when needed.