Packaging is important to protect products from damage — but it is also a sustainability issue, as well as an additional cost to goods suppliers. Deploying a virtual prototyping using Polyflow enables you to model the package manufacturing process. By coupling this solution with Ansys explicit dynamics software and Ansys Mechanical, your R&D team can evaluate and test a design's behavior and durability. You can take corrective action at the design or manufacturing phase (or both) to quickly and cost-effectively design lighter packaging with better performance.

Ansys PolyFlow allows companies to virtually design and test extrusion dies. Users can simulate the extrusion process and automatically perform die shape optimization. As a result, they are able to:

• Consider multiple design options, making “what if” strategies easy
• Design dies faster
  
• Understand and eliminate flow related problems
  
• Enjoy reduced costs for engineering and extrusion line time, die fabrication and scrap material. One company using simulation for die design experienced a 200 percent ROI the first year.
  

Ansys Polyflow includes a vast library of mathematical material models so you can understand and accurately characterize material behavior. Using the Polyflow material library, you can investigate behavior of new plastics and elastomers for applications as diverse as extrusion, blow molding, thermoforming, fiber spinning and film casting. Simulation enables you to test the ability to process new resins, even before they have ever been produced, by comparing prototypes for different materials to see if they match or outperform existing and competitive materials. You can reverse-design a resin to maximize end-product performance while minimizing costs and environmental impact.

Ansys Polyflow models include viscous heating to allow you to detect potential deterioration of a polymer grade or undesired rubber curing. Accurate modeling of high-temperature processes, such as glass forming, requires the use of advanced nonlinear material properties, accurate radiation prediction (using, for example, the discrete ordinate radiation model) and the Narayanaswamy model that accounts for material stress relaxation during the cooling process.

Ansys Polyflow includes native fluid–structure interaction (FSI) to model thermomechanical interactions between flowing materials and surrounding solids in a fully coupled approach. When large deformations occur within the elastic zone, the mesh resolution is automatically refined to improve the quality of results.

You can significantly reduce time to market by seamlessly exporting Polyflow results to Ansys Mechanical software to perform structural analysis. Using the data within Ansys explicit dynamics tools, you can conduct virtual drop tests and calculate top-loading deformation.

Designing equipment and processes for best results involves evaluating multiple designs and optimizing flow and geometric parameters. With Ansys Polyflow, you can declare any scalar as an optimization variable, including rheological parameters, boundary conditions and mesh displacements. Then you can use the built-in optimization algorithm to automatically minimize or maximize a given objective function based on input parameters.