What thermoset materials can you simulate in Moldflow Insight?
I recently had dinner with two college roommates that both graduated from the Plastics Engineering program at Penn State. One of them looked me in the eye and stated “I love your Moldflow Monday’s posts – too bad Moldflow can’t simulate Thermosets”. Challenge accepted.
Now this roommate was just teasing me, Moldflow can easily simulate thermoset materials. I have included several thermoset examples here such as LSR, EPDM, NR, and NBR. You can also simulate various molding techniques like Reactive Injection Molding, Reactive Compression Molding, Reactive Injection-Compression, Reactive Microcellular Injection Molding, and Resin Transfer Molding.
They were also trying to make a point to us that material testing is key for thermosets (as well as thermoplastics). We talked about using the data fitting or material testing options to get him better results with his thermosetting materials.
Thermosets are drastically different from thermoplastics. LSR materials have material suppliers like our thermoplastic database, so you can often find useful processing guides from companies like Dow, Wacker, Momentive, and Shin-Etsu. Most of the thermoset materials are often made in-house so processing or material information is less readily available online.
What thermoset materials have you simulated in Moldflow Insight?