Molding Madness: The Ultimate Showdown with Fusion Simulation and Moldflow

MASON MYERS: Thanks, everyone, for joining today. My name is Mason. I'm joined with my good friend, coworker, and former college roommate Trevor Thorwart. Today we're here to present to you MFG601071, Molding Madness, The Ultimate Showdown Between Fusion Simulation and Moldflow.

Before Trevor and I get into too much information here, we want to show the Safe Harbor Statement, just like you've seen with all your other AU presentations that you've watched. Again, we're just showing you some information here. Please don't make any purchasing decisions based on anything you see-- what we're showing you here today.

So as I mentioned, my name is Mason Myers. I am from a small town in Western Pennsylvania. I moved to the big city to go to college, where I studied plastics engineering technology.

After getting my degree in plastics, I decided to go work for a small engineering firm called Beaumont Technologies. Beaumont does a lot of things. But at that time, we were mainly responsible for doing custom runner systems for our customers.

I decided to change paths a little bit and went to work for a thermoset organization called LORD Corporation. This was a really great opportunity for me to learn about thermoset materials, how they compare to thermoplastic materials, which had been my background up until that point. Now, I loved working at LORD. I loved my coworkers. But like any job, I had a bad day.

So one Friday, I sat down at my desk. And I said, I just want a job running Moldflow, and everyone leaves me alone. The following Monday, our other friend who worked at Autodesk-- he emailed me and asked if I would apply to a Moldflow instructor position. So that was eight years ago. So for the last eight years, I've been helping Autodesk customers implement, adopt Moldflow technologies.

TREVOR THORWART: All right. Appreciate it, Mason. So again, my name is Trevor Thorwart. And I'm a solutions engineer on our advanced manufacturing team here at Autodesk.

So like Mason, I'm from Central Pennsylvania-- so middle of the state. I could point to it, but nobody's going to know exactly where that's at. Also like Mason, as he mentioned, went to the big city to get my degree in plastics engineering technology. So for the first part of my career, I did not move out of that big city and joined a custom injection molder called Plastikos for 10 years, where I bounced between engineering and technical sales.

After that, I landed at a small metal injection molder where got experience with process engineering and engineering manager. Kind of like Mason, I had maybe a little bit more than a bad day but was contacted by himself and our colleague at Autodesk, as well, about the solution engineer role. Applied and been with Autodesk in that role for about a year and three months now.

All right. So on the agenda today, we are going to look at an overview of, what is injection molding? Second portion is going to be injection molding simulation software review. So that's really the bulk of our presentation, comparing those three softwares. And that would be Fusion, Adviser, and Insight, and we're going to see which one of those heavy weights come out on top.

Before I get too much further into that, you'll notice the picture in the top right-- the old computers. This is actually pretty accurate to what Mason and I started on with Moldflow in college. And I thought it was unique that we picked the Xbox controller since we did spend a decent amount of time playing a few video games here or there during college.

All right. So injection molding. So what is injection molding? It is a process of converting raw plastic materials into a final part.

So here we've got an overview of the injection molding machine and the process itself. What's kind of unique is this picture is actually pulled from Fusion 360 as a result output of that simulation process. So injection molding machines come in a wide variety, sizes. For different applications, you've got hydraulic, electric, hybrid. A number of manufacturers throughout the world as well.

So the first phase that we're going to look at is that filling phase. So on the right-hand side, there will be what they call a hopper, and that is where you're going to feed your plastic pellets into there. The internal screw is going to reciprocate and start to shear that material, lowering the viscosity along with the heater bands on the exterior of the barrel. Once that happens, that mold is going to close, and we're actually going to inject molten plastic to form your final part.

The second portion of that would be the filling phase. So your cavity's injected. Its filled with material. And this is where we're going to apply additional pressure to try to reduce warpage, volumetric shrinkage, and really get that gate to solidify, so we're not getting any backfill and that we're getting proper part formation.

Next would be the cooling phase. So exactly what it means-- we're trying to get that part cooled to a temperature to where we're able to eject it without having any major concerns on part deformation, sticking of material inside the mold in different areas, et cetera. Also during this phase, we're going to look-- if that screw is going to rotate back and build up what we consider the next shot, so basically the next full amount of material for the part.

And then the mold open phase. So the mold is going to do exactly what it says. It's going to open. That part is going to be ejected, either into sometimes bins. Sometimes it can be automation picking the parts directly from said mold, and then that is going to close and repeat that process again.

That was a relatively quick version of what injection molding is. It's a lot more scientific and difficult than that. But just wanted to give a quick overview before we jump into the simulation portion.

So the three areas that we're going to cover today are Fusion Injection Molding Simulation, which is really good for up front kind of a part design. Is this good to go into the next phase, simulation? Next we would have Moldflow Adviser. So that's starting to look a little bit more in depth at your part design and your mold design for manufacturability. And then Moldflow Insight, really the heavyweight of the three, for in-depth part and mold design along with that process optimization as well.

So simulation within the development process. Again, we're going to look at Fusion 360, taking that part at first concept. A designer that maybe doesn't have a ton of experience with plastic part design can use rules within Fusion 360 and then guided results within the simulation extension to say, hey, this is good to move on to the next phase of development. Maybe kick it to an external mold shop for them to start completing their design.

Moldflow Adviser definitely takes that one step further by incorporating that initial mold design and build into the software. Do we have cooling lines placed in the right location? Taking that just a little bit further than what Fusion 360 can offer.

And then finally Moldflow Insight. So this is really where you're looking at your molding trials, your validation, getting it ready for production, higher-level simulation capabilities to make sure that we're hitting that process and mold design right the first time.

So Fusion Injection Molding Simulation. So just a few things that we can take a look at within here. It's going to cover things such as wall thickness. Do we need to reduce some thicknesses to create a more nominal wall thickness, the number one rule in plastic part design?

Draft angles. Do we have appropriate draft in certain areas that we think might stick or might be difficult to eject within the mold? Then we'll take a look at undercuts. So some undercuts are deemed appropriate for design that might require maybe slides or side action. Some might be an unintended design issue, and we can point those out with Fusion Injection Molding. And then we're going to get into our thermoplastic results, similar to all three of the different software.

Next we can look at that Design Adviser, taking a look at all three of those first-- wall thickness, draft angles, and undercuts. Next we're going to look at the machine overview. So it's going to give an estimated filling time, pack time, cycle time, as well, for that user. And then our Full Material Library is available, as well, within Fusion Injection Molding.

And what I'd like to look at, in the top right corner of this screen, is a topographical map. So you're taking a hike. This is pinpointing you maybe. What's your easiest path to get to, say, that lake in the right corner of the picture? It's not going to necessarily tell you exact what direction, but it's going to give you a nice, easy, downhill walk if you're up top.

Next we're going to look at Moldflow Adviser. So, similar to Fusion 360, a lot of the guided results around wall thickness, draft angles, undercuts, and thermoplastic results are there as well. We also have the option for gate location, determining what area of the part is best suited to place a gate, as well as then we get into runner sizing. So Fusion 360 is a little limited on just part only. So we're advanced in Moldflow Adviser to doing multiple cavities and runner sizing.

And finally, we would have a Cost Adviser. So if you know your material costs, your press rate, things like that, it can give you an estimation on what that part should cost. And again, similar to Fusion 360, we've got the Compass in the top right-hand corner. So this is giving you a little bit more guided result than the topo map would be to getting to your simulation destination.

And finally, Moldflow Insight, so advanced process capability. Again, runner sizing to make sure that we're able to fill the part, but not too big that it's going to limit our cycle time and increase part costs. We can look at mold and part inserts. We can look at advanced shrinkage and warpage analysis, being able to pull those results then even into an FEA analysis. We're going to check out valve gating and advanced processes and then additional cooling analysis, such as conformal cooling.

And this is-- final one in the top right-hand corner is your GPS. This is guiding you exactly where you need to go, step-by-step directions. You've got the different iterations on voices that you can have telling you where you need to get to.

MASON MYERS: Thanks, Trevor. So anytime someone asks me to run a simulation, I love this slide because I put this up here. And I want you to determine the simulation objective.

People ask me all the time, Mason, can you run a simulation, or can you run a mold flow on that? And absolutely. I can run a mold flow on anything. But if we look at all these questions, Fusion, and Adviser, and Insight-- they can answer all of these questions. But if we break them down into smaller sections, it's going to be an easier day for us, to help us actually run the simulation.

So questions like, will the part fill, will there be weld lines or air traps-- those type of questions can be answered with a simple fill analysis. Now, when you start getting into more detailed questions on, how thick should the part be, are the ribs too thin, are the ribs too thick, that's something that we would have to look at in a packing analysis and look at things like volumetric shrinkage.

Now, there are some other questions that I have listed here that are around gates, runners, cooling. Now, those are going to be reserved for some of the higher-end simulations, but all good questions here, all the way down to, will the part warp? Everyone wants to know about shrink and warp in plastic part designs.

But unfortunately, we have to go through this journey using one of the tools-- the Map, the Compass, or the GPS-- to get to that final question of, will my part be within dimensions? So again, all great questions. But it can help if we reduce this list slightly and really focus on, why are you running this simulation?

So for today's main event, what Trevor and I did was we took the same part. And we ran it through Fusion Injection Molding Simulation, we ran it through Moldflow Adviser, and we ran it through Moldflow Insight. Now, we picked, obviously, the same CAD model, the same material, the same process conditions. And what we did is we've taken each one of these criteria.

In this case, we're showing you model preparation time. And we're going to rank them accordingly. So based on what we see as far as ease of use or accuracy of the results, we've decided to give each one of these a coveted green check mark for their individual criteria. So in this case, we felt that the Fusion and the Adviser model preparation time was much easier than that of Moldflow Insight. So for that reason, they get awarded the green check mark.

I do think it's important to note that Trevor and I both have a Moldflow Insight background. So for us, we do gravitate towards that because that's our foundation. That's what's easier to us. But we did try to be subjective in our rankings.

You don't have to follow along. We're going to sum up these results for you at the end to crown a champion at the end of our presentation here. But, again, model preparation time, we decided to award the point to Fusion and Adviser here.

So the next criteria that we want to look at is fill time. Now, we're going to be showing you a lot of simulation results. And one thing that I encourage most people that are new to simulation, first and foremost, is to look at the scale.

So in this case, the fill time animations that I'm showing you, the units are seconds for time. So in this case, blue is not cold. Red is not hot. We're just showing you how the plastic fills in the cavity in its corresponding time to fill that area of the cavity.

Now, this fill time plot is usually one of the first ones that I look at. And it's a really nice way to see how the plastic is going to fill the mold or mold our part. Now, in this case, the fill times are very similar to one another. And the filling patterns, I would argue, are virtually identical between Fusion, Adviser, and Insight. So in this scenario, the fill time plot, we decided to award a point to each one of the simulation tools.

Next, pressure. So again, looking at pressure between Fusion, Adviser, and Insight, you'll notice that the scale may be difficult to read. So we decided to give you a cheat code right here.

So in this case, you can see that the pressure for Fusion was about 109 megapascals. Adviser came in at 114. And Insight estimated 122 megapascals to fill this part cavity.

So if you're not familiar with injection pressure, this is the available pressure that we have to fill the cavity. We want to make sure this value is under the press capacity limit. So we have the available pressure to fill this cavity.

So the fact that they vary from 109 to 122 doesn't really scare me in terms of values. I would not make a different engineering decision with those different values. But one thing I do want to point out is the color scheme. If you'll notice that Fusion and Insight have an asymmetrical pressure distribution, where Adviser is assuming symmetrical pressures left to right.

Now, I've worked with this model quite a bit. I use it a lot in my LinkedIn posts. But I've run enough simulations on this to know that, as you can see, the part cavity is not symmetrical. So we don't really expect the pressure to be symmetrical.

So for this case, we decided to award the point to Fusion and Insight for their correct pressure distribution assumption, where Adviser didn't get the point because, while the value was there, the distribution was slightly off. So again, sorry, Adviser, but we decided to award a point to Fusion and Insight here.

So temperature at flow front. So when you look at any of these simulation results, sometimes the name of the plot can give it away. Pressure, that one is a little bit easier to wrap your head around.

Temperature and flow front can be a little bit confusing, but let's break it down. Temperature at flow front-- it's showing you the temperature of the material when it hits that area of the part cavity. Between Fusion, Adviser, and Insight, you'll notice that the high score here is around 255, 256 centigrade, which is very similar. And even the distribution of the plot is very similar between the three software packages here.

So if you remember from our setup, we're introducing melt at around 215 centigrade. So what we're seeing here is a rise in temperature. This is showing us how much shear heat is being developed when we push the plastic in this amount of time. So because we have the same distribution and the same high score between all of them, we decided to award a point for each one in this scenario just for uniformity here.

So air traps. Air traps are a problem that we see in our plastic part designs when we go to mold the part. Based on how the plastic fills in the part cavity, you can get some filling patterns that may be less than ideal, and they can actually trap air. And what the air trap prediction plot would show you is where these air traps are likely to occur. So when we are designing our tool, we can be sure to put a vent in that area, so we avoid this problem.

Now, if you have your eyeglasses on, you might see that Fusion and Adviser might be difficult for you to see any air trap prediction. If we look at the Moldflow Insight air trap prediction, you'll notice that we do have a scale. And it's a little bit easier for us to see the location of these air traps in the part cavity in these certain areas. So given that information, we decided to award the point to Moldflow Insight.

Now, I think Fusion was a close second here just because it did show some of those locations. But they were single color, which made it a little bit more difficult to identify. Adviser-- or excuse me-- Insight wins out here because of the scale. It allows you to see not only the location of the air trap but the severity as well.

So sticking with the quality theme, weld lines is the next plot that we compared for these three different software packages. So weld lines, like air traps, are a function of the part geometry and the resultant filling pattern. So when two flow fronts wrap around a feature, like a hole, they could meet back together on the opposite side and form a very small line, or a witness mark. This is perceived poor quality.

So if you were to buy a brand new SUV or a brand new truck, you don't want to see a weld line going down the middle of your dashboard. It's perceived poor quality. So this is a quality issue that we would like to know about to try to shift these weld lines with the part design or gate location change. So again, you'll notice that Fusion does give you a single color scheme of where these weld lines would show up on the part.

Adviser and Insight have a degree of formation. So anything in blue is a very weak butt weld, whereas we get higher in the degree of formation, anything closer to 135 degrees would be more of a meld line. So given that added information that we get from Adviser and Insight, we decided to give them the points just because it shows you the location and the severity of those particular weld lines.

So sticking with the quality theme, sink marks is another quality issue that we can identify in a simulation with Fusion, Adviser, and Insight. So sink marks are a small indentation that can show up on the molded part surface. Again, this could be an issue for perceived part quality.

Oftentimes, what happens in a plastic part design is, on the opposing side, we might have rib structures or boss features for assembly purposes or strength. In that case, those small changes in thickness-- as Trevor pointed out, the first rule of plastic part design is uniform wall thickness. It also happens to be the first rule that goes right out the window.

So when we start changing these wall thicknesses, we can have variation in shrinkages which equate to sink marks that may show up on the part cavity. You'll notice that the value or the depth of these sink marks is pretty close between Fusion, Adviser, and Insight-- around 0.015 and 0.02. Again, for me, making an engineering decision, those are very close in proximity to one another.

Trevor and I had a pretty long discussion on this one. We initially wanted to award points to both Adviser and Insight. But we decided to give points to Fusion as well as Adviser and Insight just because Fusion shows them in a different way, because you can see that Adviser and Insight shows a sea of blue there where we have no sink marks. Fusion does the same thing, but it just washes out any areas that are not seeing that sink mark issue. So again, points for everybody on the sink mark plot.

So volumetric shrinkage. As plastics are being heated up in the screw and barrel, they expand. And when we start to cool them down in the cooling phase, plastic materials shrink.

Now, different materials, different thicknesses, different processes will shrink differently from one another. So in this case, volumetric shrinkage is showing you the percentage of change in volume here from the initial filling phase to the molded part. You'll notice that these volumetric shrinkages do vary a little bit-- 7.7% for the Fusion, around 9.4% for Adviser, and 8.5% for Insight. Again, these are similar in nature for what I'm looking for, and the distribution is also similar between these three.

So in this case, it's important to point out that Fusion and Insight are actually doing a cycled average, where Adviser is showing you the volumetric shrinkage at a very specific moment in time. So that can explain some of the fluctuation that we're seeing on these plots. So again, similar values, similar trends. We awarded a point for each in this scenario.

So time to reach ejection temperature. It's not rocket surgery. You can just break it down. The time to reach ejection temperature is the time for this material to be cooled down to its designated ejection temperature.

Each material is going to have a different ejection temperature. As we vary our part thicknesses, that's also going to change the time to reach ejection temperature. So in this case, Fusion, Adviser, Insight-- they all came around 29 to 36 seconds. This is a really good way to gauge our estimated cycle time.

So in this scenario, I would like to point out that Fusion and Adviser did a really nice job of mapping the thicker areas that are taking longer to cool out to the part's surface. So it's a little bit easier to identify the areas for improvement.

So if we look at the Insight, it just looks like everything's taking about a second to cool down, which is not the case. If we were to do some advanced cut planes or contour plots, we could identify areas like we're seeing in Fusion and Adviser. But looking at this plot right out of the box, we decided, rather, to award points to Fusion and Adviser because it tells you that the time to reach ejection temperature, but also the location of areas improvement. So we decided to go that particular route.

Deflection-- as I mentioned, everyone wants to run a simulation. Everyone wants to look at warpage. And rightfully so. But we have to be looking at filling results, packing results, cooling results because all of these feed into our warpage plots that I'm showing you here.

So deflection plot, it's showing you both the shrink and the warpage for the part. In this case, you'll notice that the amount of deflection that we're showing is around 0.43 to 0.47 millimeters. So the difference here is pretty small in the grand scheme of things. And the distribution between Fusion, Adviser, and Insight on where it's shrinking and warping the least, as to the high warpage that we're seeing at the end of fill, is very similar. So for this case, we decided to give them all a point because of the deflection distribution and the overall values that we predicted.

Now, flatness is a more advanced way to look at how a part is shrinking and warping. So obviously, these plastic parts need to have a fit, form, or function to them. So maybe they're resting flat on a surface. Maybe this particular plastic part has to mate with an opposing plastic part. So we may want certain surfaces to be flat.

And if we look at Fusion, this is actually one of the features that I love most about Fusion Injection Molding Simulation, is that you can easily grab a surface. And it will tell you how flat other surfaces are in relation to the surfaces that you have selected. So in this case, the center of the part looks a little bit more intolerant where the extremities are a little bit out of plane, showing us some distortion or movement of the molded part. And we can even adjust those tolerances as well.

If we jump ahead to Moldflow Insight, Moldflow Insight has some tools, as well, where we can grab certain surfaces or nodes on a surface and run some API scripts that come preloaded with the software. In this case, I'm just grabbing the nodes on a surface and typing in flatness. And it gives me a value.

Now, for Moldflow Adviser, in the center here, we can also do flatness. But we do have to do a little bit more work by assigning anchor points or anchor planes. So while it can be done, we felt that Adviser and Fusion-- excuse me-- Insight and Fusion, rather, awarded a point here just because of the ease of use in trying to determine how flat a part is.

Inspect and examine. So in this particular case, I've just taken a plot. It could be any plot.

We're just showing you deflection. Can be volumetric shrinkage, sink marks, whatever. And you can use an inspect or examine feature. And I've just selected an area of the part cavity, and in this case, it's telling me the warpage is around 0.3mm.

So at first glance, you could say that these are all very similar. And I completely agree. So this is one, again, where Trevor and I had to have a heart to heart and really talk about who should be awarded a point here.

Initially, I think we wanted to give everyone a point. But one thing that's interesting about Insight is that not only does it show you the warpage amount in that location. It also shows you the coordinates both before and after warpage. So this was a tight race, but in the end, we felt that Insight earned that point just because of the added value that was given with the examine result within Moldflow Insight.

Again, Trevor and I tried to be subjective here. We tried to be fair. But again, we would encourage you to take what we've learned here and use it on your own part, your own applications, and make your own comparison between these three.

So anytime you run a simulation, whether it be Fusion, Adviser, or Insight, we generate something called a table, a summary, or log files. First glance, you'll notice that Fusion 360 and Moldflow Insight have some very comparable table format, showing you things like time, volumetric shrinkage, pressure, status, things of that nature.

So again, initially, I think Trevor and I had to have a pretty long discussion on which one gets the coveted green check mark here. And I think initially, we wanted to award it to Fusion and Insight, given their similarity and their level of detail. But Trevor had a good point that, within Moldflow Adviser, we get similar information. But it also has something called a Cost Adviser that can really help you with cycle times but piece price estimates as well.

So this was also a close call. Had to go to instant replay on this one. But in the end, we decided to award all three of them a point for how they report out tables, summaries, and log file informations.

So reports. When you're done with your simulation, whether it be Fusion, Adviser, Insight, you want to share your results, whether it be with a coworker, your boss, your spouse, your kids. You want to put up on the fridge. Whatever you do with your Moldflow results, each one of them has an avenue for getting results out of simulation into a report format.

So Fusion has a really simple, I would say, detailed automatic report that it generates quickly and easily. Jumping ahead to Insight on the right, we have options with Moldflow Insight. We can use the Report Wizard. We can use the Audi Report, or even some scripts that come embedded with the software. So again, options here with Moldflow Insight.

Moldflow Adviser, we're really left to the Report Wizard in its own right. And nothing against the Report Wizard. It is a little bit basic. You might have to do some trial and error to get this to look like a nice, polished report. So given that information, we decided to go with Fusion and Insight in terms of reports just because of ease of use and the options available with Moldflow Insight.

And then, finally, solve time. Time is money. So all this is great, but we need our results in a timely manner.

So for this, we looked at Fusion, Adviser, and Insight as well, but we also tracked the time to complete the simulation. So Fusion was about 25 minutes. Adviser came in at one hour and 10 minutes. And Insight was able to be solved in one hour and 18 minutes.

Now, it's important to point out that both Adviser and Insight have some advanced features where we can control, or we can do things that would impact the solve time. Adviser has a level of accuracy that goes from 0, 1, 2, and 3.

In order to replicate what Fusion is doing, we needed to solve that on a level 3 accuracy, which takes an hour and 10 minutes. If you were to truncate that, you could see results in about 38 minutes. So I'm just being transparent there. But given the drastic reduction in solve time, obviously Fusion being the fastest by far, Fusion gets the point here for solve time.

So breaking this down, if you take all the results that we talked about, whether it be model preparation time, any of the individual filling results, the packing results, the cooling or warp results, along with things like reports and solve time, you can see this is what we have as far as a breakdown. Now, just so you don't have to count here, Fusion get did get 12 points, along with Moldflow Insight got 12 points. Adviser is a close second with 9 points.

TREVOR THORWART: All right. Thanks, Mason. So we're going to jump into a little bit of what distinguishes the three different softwares. And I'm going to hit on one point before I do that.

So Mason mentioned that Fusion and Insight both came in at a 12 out of 15 and Adviser 9 out of 15. So you're looking at a 60% and an 80%. I would personally be very happy with those. My wife, being a teacher, would probably not be on the happy end of those percentages.

So looking at the three different softwares-- so where they set themselves apart-- we start to look at runners. So I mentioned earlier that Fusion 360 is a part only simulation. And I didn't want to give too much of it away because that's what we were trying to distinguish through this, is really how to compare all three. So within Adviser and Insight, you are able to simulate your process through a runner. And that eliminates Fusion from that discussion.

Next, we're going to look at cooling. So hit on this a little bit in the overview section at the beginning of the presentation. So again, Fusion 360, part only. Adviser, we can start looking at some limited cooling results, baffles, bubblers, some cooling lines. But really, Moldflow Insight, when you're getting into conformal cooling, really trying to see how that impacts your part performance is where it's going to start setting itself apart from the other two.

Next we have inserts and mold blocks. I don't want to sound like a broken record. But again, Fusion 360, part only, no playing in this space either.

So Moldflow Adviser, we are able to simulate some mold blocks, keeping it at one material. So really limited there. Moldflow Insight, we're able to bring in our entire mold, switch the materials to really simulate that thermal impact. So that's definitely going to-- if we were giving out the coveted green check mark, would certainly get it in this scenario as well.

And then, finally, we're going to look at the different molding processes. So Fusion 360 and Adviser are limited to thermoplastic injection molding. Where Insight, again, is going to set itself apart is those specialized processes, such as compression molding, powder injection molding, which I've used in a past role, chemical foaming, resin transfer molding, and even co-injection as well. So in terms of the heavyweight software, certainly Insight, with its versatility and these other molding processes, would get that green check mark here as well.

MASON MYERS: So in summary today, hopefully you've seen that we have shown that there can be comparable results when we're looking at a part-only context between Fusion, Adviser, and Insight, which, again, I think is a good starting point. We should be running part only initially. So at this point, it really doesn't matter what you pick. As long as you're doing some upfront simulations, you're going to get similar results between the three of them.

In terms of ease of use, speed, and accuracy, Fusion 360 might be the best use case for someone that's new to simulation. You don't have to have a four-year degree to run this simulation. You're going to get some really cool results in a short order that can help you make a better plastic part design.

Now, as Trevor just mentioned, if you need more complexity in your analysis-- maybe you're using an exotic material like a thermoset, or you're doing a very odd one-off process-- you may need Insight for that level of complexity and that level of detail. I probably would argue that eventually, you probably should be running a lot of this in Insight, especially when you get into runners, cooling, and advanced warp.

But really, it comes down to you and your objective-- why are you running this simulation-- that can allow you to make that determination if Fusion is right for you, whether it be Adviser, or Moldflow Insight. If you're still struggling with which Insight or which level of simulation is right for you, please feel free to reach out to Trevor or myself.

We have our email addresses. And the QR code should take you to our LinkedIn profiles if you would like to connect with us or ask us any questions. We'd be happy to hear from you or help you answer any questions in regards to your simulations.