Glossary

Basic mold

A SimForm simplified mold model generated automatically around the plastic parts in to identify hot areas during the initial design phase.

CAD model

A 3D digital representation of the plastic part and optionally of the molds. SimForm uses the CAD model for simulations.

Company account

A type of SimForm account that allows you to add users, manage credits, and monitor usage statistics.

Compression molding

A plastic manufacturing process where preheated plastic is placed into a heated mold cavity, compressed to conform to the mold shape, and cured under heat and pressure.

Conformal cooling

A cooling method where cooling channels follow the shape of the plastic part to provide more uniform and efficient cooling.

Conventional cooling

A standard cooling method using straight-line cooling channels to remove heat from the mold.

Cooling cycle time

The duration required for the plastic part to cool and solidify within the mold.

Design project

A SimForm project type used to run thermal analyses on cooling designs.

Feasibility project

A SimForm project type that allows you to estimate achievable cooling times and predict critical areas requiring additional cooling before the mold design stage.

Global freeze time

The time required for most of the plastic part to reach a safe ejection temperature, ensuring that the part has solidified enough to maintain its shape during ejection.

Injection molding

A plastic manufacturing process where molten plastic is injected into a mold cavity, cooled, and solidified to form a specific shape.

Job

A unit of analysis within a SimForm project that evaluates specific mold or plastic part design.

Local freeze time

The time required for a specific area of the plastic part to reach a safe ejection temperature.

Mold group

A SimForm category used to organize and define the properties of mold components for thermal analysis.

Project

A collection of SimForm jobs used to organize, manage, and compare different mold cooling designs.

Safe ejection temperature

The temperature at which the plastic part can be safely ejected from the mold.

Subscribed user account

An upgraded SimForm account that allows you to create more projects, manage credits, and add users.

Thermal solver

A computational tool that SimForm uses in the backend to perform thermal simulations and analyze heat transfer. It calculates heat flow and temperature distribution for various materials and can handle complex geometries and boundary conditions.

Transient thermal simulation

A type of simulation that tracks temperature changes over time.

Trial account

A SimForm account type that provides free credits for limited project creation and exploration of SimForm capabilities.

Voxel-based mesh

A mesh generated using volumetric pixels to capture physical phenomena accurately by dividing a 3D space into small, discrete volumetric elements called voxels. In SimForm backend, the thermal solver runs the thermal simulations over the voxel-based mesh of the 3D representation of plastic mold design.