Altair Manufacturing Solver 2020 Release Notes

Altair Manufacturing Solver is a state-of-the-art solver suite for manufacturing applications built on a parallel, modular, and extensible framework that is suitable for simulations of manufacturing processes. The current version of Manufacturing Solver includes a casting solver that is used under Altair Inspire Cast and an injection molding solver that has an interface in Altair SimLab.

Casting Simulation

Supported Features

Metal casting is a widely used manufacturing process used to mold metal into a desired shape. This is achieved by pouring a liquid metal into a mold and cooling it to solidify the part. There are many varieties of casting processes that depend on how the molten metal is delivered into the mold, the type of material used to make the mold, and the cooling techniques. The casting solver supports the following features:

Supported common casting techniques
  • High pressure die casting
  • Low pressure die casting
  • Investment casting
  • Gravity sand and die casting
  • Gravity tilt pouring
  • Gravity tilt pouring with crucible
  • Gravity with constant liquid level on the sprue
  • High pressure die casting with shot sleeve
  • Cycling
Supported standard casting components
The solver supports the modeling of standard casting components, such as:
  • Core
  • Chiller
  • Riser
  • Isothermal and exothermal sleeves
  • Overflow
  • Mold
  • Cooler
  • Filter
  • Shot sleeve
  • Crucible
Supported computed results
  • Flow Front
  • Velocity
  • Pressure
  • Temperature
  • Cold Shuts
  • Air Entrapment
  • Flow length
  • Mold Erosion
  • Solid Fraction evolution
  • Shrinkage porosity
  • Pipe shrinkage
  • Solidification Modulus
  • Niyama
  • Microporosity
  • Solidification time

New Features

Solution Stages
AMS has modularized the solution sequence such that interoperability between different solution modules is naturally implemented. This will allow the solver to combine different manufacturing processes to create one seamless simulation.
New Flow Solver
Solver has implemented a new robust flow solver, which can be used in very slow fillings. This solver feature is not available in the user interface and it can be tested manually.
Customizable Cooling Channels
Solver has implemented customizable cooling channels that can be activated/deactivated as a function of time or based on the temperature detected by a virtual thermocouple. In addition, the heat transfer coefficient is computed automatically depending on process conditions.

Enhancements

Solution Stability
Solver has improved the solution stability and convergence when running low pressure die casting simulations.
Piston Position
Solver now allows starting piston shot simulations from a quiet piston position.
Output from Multi-Cycle Analysis
Improvements to temperature output are implemented and this enables to study the temperature evolution through all cycles.
Improved Mold—Part Convergence
The numerical iteration procedure between the part and the mold has been improved and support for non-congruent mesh between part and mold has been added.
Thermal Instability
A new monotonicity preserving scheme has been added to avoid non-physical undershoots/overshoots in mold temperatures that might appear in very low conductivity molds.
Improved Porosity Algorithm
Added a new experimental algorithm to compute porosity in HPDC and better account for intensification phase compensation.

Resolved Issues

Solver Crash in Multi-Cycle Analysis
Resolved an issue in cycling (solution with multiple cycles) that may make the solver crash under some circumstances.
End of Simulation Results
Resolved an issue that may prevent the end of simulation results from being written during solidification, leading to incomplete result files.
Tilt Pouring – Solidification Results
Improved results presentation when the solidification occurred in a part that was partially filled with air (tilt pouring with a cup).

Injection Molding Simulation

Supported Features

Injection molding is one of the most common processes used for the production of polymer parts. This is a cyclic process and often used with thermoplastic polymers. A polymer in the form of pellets is mixed with other additives, then heated to a melt state, and finally pressurized in a single screw extruder. This pressurized polymer melt is injected into the mold at a high flow rate to fill the mold cavities. These cavities are made in the form of the final part accounting for the shrinkage, and then the mold is cooled and the part is ejected from the mold as soon as it is stable enough for ejection. This is a cyclic process and this sequence repeats. Altair Manufacturing Solver is used for simulating the injection molding process. The following features are supported:

Supported solution sequences
  • Filling
  • Filling + Cooling
  • Filling + Cooling + Warpage
  • Cooling
  • Cooling + Warpage
  • Filling + Packing
  • Filling + Packing + Cooling
  • Filling + Packing + Cooling + Warpage
Support for fiber orientation analysis
Fiber orientation analysis is supported and can be optionally turned on.
Filling solution module
The filling solution module supports:
  • Velocity driven filling
  • Velocity/pressure (VP) switch over
  • Final pressure driven filling
  • Gates can be timed with table data
Supported packing stage phases
The packing stage includes both packing and holding phases.
Model support
The solver can support models that contain:
  • Complete or partial runner system
  • Single or multi-cavity molds
  • Analysis with or without mold plates and mold inserts
  • Analysis with or without part inserts
  • Symmetry conditions
Supported computed results
  • Air traps
  • Density
  • Fill time
  • Pressure
  • Temperature
  • Velocity
  • Maximum velocity
  • Strain rate
  • Weld surface
  • Viscosity
  • Sink marks
  • Fiber orientation tensor
  • Warpage - displacement
  • Warpage - stresses

New Features

Solution Stages
AMS has modularized the solution sequence such that interoperability between different solution modules is naturally implemented. This will allow the solver to combine different manufacturing processes to create one seamless simulation.

Enhancements

Solver Speed Up
Molding solver is enhanced to increase the computational speed of filling simulation without compromising on the solution accuracy. Solver now supports three solution modes:
fast
For a very fast and reasonably accurate solution for filling simulation. This solution will be three to four times faster than the solution computed in the previous release.
more_accurate
For a more accurate solution. This solution will be up to two times faster than the solution computed in the previous release.
default
Solution settings are similar to those computed in the previous release. This feature is not exposed in the user interfaces.
Material Data Updates
Material data now includes source metadata and process data. There is no change however to the rheology and thermomechanical data used in the computation.
Improvements to Stop Criteria
The filling simulation will now be stopped if a short shot is detected and an appropriate message will be printed in the out file. Subsequent simulations (packing, cooling) will not be performed.
Improvements to Short Shot Detection
Improvements are made in detecting short shot. In the material flow path to the part, if the gate/runner system is frozen such that no more material is fed to the part, simulation is stopped, and an appropriate message is printed in the out file.

Resolved Issues

XML Export of Fiber Orientation Tensor
There was an issue in the order of A12, A23, and A13 components in the XML file. It is now resolved and they are exported in the correct order: A11, A22, A33, A12, A13, and A23.