Solver Enhancements for 2027

The following enhancements to the analysis solvers provide you with better solutions and improved accuracy.

Improved Residual Stress Calculation for Dual Domain and Midplane Analyses

Significant improvements have been made to the residual stress calculation for Dual Domain and Midplane mesh technologies. These improvements reduce the differences in warpage predictions between Dual Domain and 3D mesh technologies. The enhanced calculation method affects both the Uncorrected Residual Stress model and the Corrected Residual In-Mold Stress (CRIMS) model. With this update, the warpage predictions from Dual Domain and 3D meshes are now in much better agreement.

As part of this change, the previous Uncorrected Residual Stress model has been renamed to the Legacy Uncorrected Residual Stress model. You will notice changes in warpage predictions for analyses using Dual Domain or Midplane mesh technology with either the Uncorrected Residual Stress model or the CRIMS model.

Influence of outer heater temperature on temperature of hot runners

When the outer heater temperature of a hot runner manifold is set differently from the melt temperature:

  1. The 3D Flow solver of previous Moldflow releases ignored the outer heater setting and instead used the melt temperature to initialize the melt in hot runners. In the Moldflow 2027 release, the 3D Flow solver initializes the melt in the hot runner to match the set outer heater temperature. This change ensures that the temperature results are influenced by the outer heater temperature as expected.
  2. In previous Moldflow releases, the Cool + Fill + Pack analysis sequence of the Midplane or Dual Domain solver also ignored the outer heater temperature setting. This issue has been resolved in the Moldflow 2027 release, where the Cool solver now correctly passes the outer heater temperature to the Midplane or Dual Domain Flow solver.

"Time to reach ejection temperature" for 3D Flow analysis

In the Moldflow 2027 release, we have enhanced the calculation of the "Time to reach ejection temperature" result for 3D Flow analysis. This improvement will likely reduce the predicted "Time to reach ejection temperature" result for models where hot runners modeled in beam elements are directly connected to the cold tetrahedral elements of the mold cavity.

"Cavity weight" result

The Cavity Weight result displays the calculated weight of each individual cavity in a multi-cavity mold. In previous Moldflow releases, the Midplane and Dual Domain Flow solvers multiplied the cavity weight by the occurrence number assigned to each cavity. Starting with the Moldflow 2027 release, the Midplane and Dual Domain Flow solvers no longer apply the occurrence number in this calculation. Instead, they now report the true weight of each cavity. This aligns with the approach used by the 3D Flow solver.

Improved Warpage Calculation Accuracy

The accuracy of Warp analyses is affected by the nodes selected for the boundary conditions which are part of the deflection calculation. In the new release, the automatic constraint selection method has been made more robust. This change may bring minor result changes in warpage prediction of all mesh types.

Improved solution accuracy around gates

In this release, we have improved the automatic refinement of the calculation mesh around gates in 3D models. This improves accuracy in the transfer of melt temperature from the runner system to the part and result symmetry in multi-cavity molds.

Increased availability of the Powder Volume Concentration result

If the Powder properties tab of the thermoplastic material data is populated, the Powder volume concentration result will now be calculated for all 3D molding processes. Previously, this result was only available for the Powder Injection Molding process.

Flow length result

3D Flow analysis now produces the Flow length result that shows the length of the flow path to a node from the injection nodes for all injection molding processes.

Herschel-Bulkley-Cross-WLF viscosity model

The Herschel-Bulkley-Cross-WLF viscosity model is now available for thermoplastic materials across all mesh types (3D, Midplane, and Dual Domain). This model captures yield stress behavior at low shear rates. To enable this model, select Herschel-Bulkley-Cross-WLF under the Default viscosity model option in the Rheological Properties tab and enter the required model coefficients.