Speed the Design and Production of Extrusion Dies

Dear Desktop Engineering Reader:

The screenshots in design engineering news might lead you to think that everyone but you uses CFD (computational fluid dynamics) to simulate rockets. But engineers in industries like health care, industrial equipment, consumer goods and construction use CFD every day to design ordinary stuff like intravenous medical tubing, car dashboards, glass and plastic containers. Today's Check it Out link takes you to an engrossing Web resource on CFD for designing extrusion dies. It has some nifty screenshots too.

“Speed the Design and Production of Extrusion Dies” is the latest addition in ANSYS' ongoing Fluid Technology Tips series. ANSYS Polyflow is the highlighted software here. It provides fluid dynamics technology for designing and optimizing processes such as extrusion, thermoforming, blow molding, glass forming, fiber drawing and concrete shaping, making it widely used in polymer, glass, metal and cement processing industries.

Polymer processing and the design and optimization challenges of extrusion dies is the focus here. Basically, the engineering challenges revolve around material flows causing deformations in extruded profiles. ANSYS Polyflow helps you design and simulate extrusion dies and processes as well as perform die shape optimization. This eliminates the need to constantly make expensive prototypes while speeding up the time to get to a final design.

The site provides a synopsis of what ANSYS Polyflow brings to this endeavor, with two articles and an on-demand webinar titled “Virtual Prototyping in Rubber Seal Manufacturing and Testing.” Watch it. It's a 30-minute demo taking you through a typical rubber seal design and manufacturing process. ANSYS Mechanical does the nonlinear seal deformation analysis and ANSYS Polyflow handles die design.

The first article, “Model Company,” is part interview and part case study. The interviewee is an engineer who ended up with an award for his design of an Archimedes screw molded out of an elastomeric polymer for a machine to move grapes along during processing.

ANSYS Polyflow fluid dynamics software for designing and optimizing processes allows engineers to compensate for changes in local flow velocities that can cause deformations in extruded profiles. This screenshot shows the difference between high-speed flows (red) and slower flows along the wall (blue). Image courtesy of ANSYS Corp.

The second article, “Cutting Extrusion Die Costs,” is a technical case study stepping you through the design of an extrusion die for making PVC plastic parts for construction equipment. This article is loaded with metrics on time and cost savings.

“Speed the Design and Production of Extrusion Dies” is an excellent and enjoyable illustration of the kind of insights CFD delivers in areas that might not leap to mind when you think of CFD. Hit today's Check it Out link and enjoy.

Thanks, Pal. – Lockwood

Anthony J. Lockwood

Editor at Large, Desktop Engineering

Check out the “Speed the Design and Production of Extrusion Dies” Web resource here.