Simulation Software
SOLIDWORKS Plastics
SOLIDWORKS Plastics simulates how melted plastic flows during the injection molding process to predict manufacturing-related defects on parts and molds.
You can quickly evaluate manufacturability while you design to eliminate costly mold rework, improve part quality, and accelerate time to market. A Results Adviser provides troubleshooting steps and practical design advice to help diagnose and solve potential problems.
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Virtually assess the manufacturability and quality of injection molded part designs and tooling.
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Leverage easy-to-use simulation to reduce development time and costs.
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Evaluate effectiveness of mold cooling system designs for the right technical insights at the right time.
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Maintain associativity with SOLIDWORKS CAD data and workflows.
Which SOLIDWORKS Plastics package is right for you?
SOLIDWORKS Plastics Standard
SOLIDWORKS Plastics Standard helps you ensure parts are manufacturable early in the design process. Easy to learn and use, it is fully embedded within SOLIDWORKS CAD, so you can design for manufacturability along with form, fit, and function. With SOLIDWORKS Plastics Standard, mold designs become more efficient, good parts processing windows widened, and times to market minimized.
$5,245.00
Buy NowSOLIDWORKS Plastics Professional
SOLIDWORKS Plastics Professional builds upon SOLIDWORKS Plastics Standard with added support for mold design analysis. You can analyze single-/multi-cavity and family mold layouts (including sprues, runners, and gates), in order to estimate cycle time and optimize feed system design.
$15,745.00
Buy NowSOLIDWORKS Plastics Premium
SOLIDWORKS Plastics Premium includes SOLIDWORKS Plastics Professional with advanced simulation functionality to analyze mold cooling line layouts and part warpage. You can even balance runner systems and estimate cycle time, clamp tonnage, and shot size, enabling you to optimize feed system design and avoid costly mold rework.
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Buy Now| SOLIDWORKS Plastics Features | Standard | Professional | Premium |
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| Ease of Use | Standard | Professional | Premium |
SOLIDWORKS Plastics is fully embedded in SOLIDWORKS 3D CAD for ease of use and data integrity. Using the same user interface (UI) as SOLIDWORKS in toolbars, menus, and context-sensitive right-click menus ensures rapid familiarization. Built-in tutorials and searchable online help aid learning and troubleshooting. |
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| Design Data Reuse | Standard | Professional | Premium |
SOLIDWORKS Plastics supports SOLIDWORKS materials and configurations for easy analysis of multiple loads and product configurations. |
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| Materials Database | Standard | Professional | Premium |
With 4,000+ commercial thermoplastic grades, you can browse and select the desired from the customizable built-in material library. |
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| Meshing | Standard | Professional | Premium |
SOLIDWORKS Plastics includes these meshing features: Wizard for mesh generation and analysis setup Automatic Mesh Local Mesh Refinement Global Mesh Refinement Boundary Mesh (Shell) Solid 3D mesh |
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| Parallel Computing (Multi-core) | Standard | Professional | Premium |
| Filling Phase (1st Stage Injection) | Standard | Professional | Premium |
Predicts how material fills the cavity. Results include distributions of pressure and temperature within the cavity, and detection of potential short shots and weld lines. |
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| Automatic Gate Location(s) | Standard | Professional | Premium |
| Instantaneous Fill Time Plot | Standard | Professional | Premium |
Predicts the plastic flow pattern through the cavity at the end of fill. |
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| Sink Mark Analysis | Standard | Professional | Premium |
Predicts the depth of sink marks after the part has been ejected and cooled to room temperature. |
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| eDrawings Support | Standard | Professional | Premium |
Results can be exported to eDrawing® |
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| Fill Time | Standard | Professional | Premium |
Time needed to fill the whole mold. |
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| Ease of Fill | Standard | Professional | Premium |
Displays the quality of the injection process with ‘confidence of fill’ legend. |
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| Results Adviser | Standard | Professional | Premium |
User assistant for interpreting results. |
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| Nominal Wall Thickness Adviser | Standard | Professional | Premium |
Analyzes the part thickness and locates the high thickness ratio. |
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| Pressure at End of Fill | Standard | Professional | Premium |
Displays the maximum pressure to fill the cavity. |
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| Flow Front Temperature | Standard | Professional | Premium |
Displays the melt front temperature history. |
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| Temperature at End of Fill | Standard | Professional | Premium |
Displays the Cavity Temperature field at the end of fill. |
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| Shear Rate | Standard | Professional | Premium |
Displays the shear rate reached at the end of fill to check the injection process quality. |
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| Cooling Time | Standard | Professional | Premium |
Estimates cooling time at fill time analysis. |
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| Weld Lines | Standard | Professional | Premium |
Displays weld lines formed at locations of the part where two (or multiple) melt fronts meet. |
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| Air Traps | Standard | Professional | Premium |
Shows the location where high pressure air may be trapped inside the cavity. |
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| Sink Marks | Standard | Professional | Premium |
Displays the location of sink marks. |
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| Frozen Layer Fraction at End of Fill | Standard | Professional | Premium |
Displays the fraction of frozen material into the part at end of fill. |
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| Clamp Force | Standard | Professional | Premium |
Displays the minimum clamp force for the current injection process. |
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| Cycle Time | Standard | Professional | Premium |
Displays the cycle time for the current injection process. |
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| Symmetry Analysis | Professional | Premium | |
Avoid simulating both cavities in a symmetrical mold layout, saving computer time for the simulation. |
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| Packing Phase (2nd Stage Injection) | Professional | Premium | |
Evaluates the material freezing process in the cavity. Predicts the temperature to evaluate hot spots, gate freeze, and cycle time. Distributions of pressure, stress, and shrinkage results are also available. |
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| Runner Balancing | Professional | Premium | |
Determines the runner parameters to balance filling between parts. |
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| Runner Design Wizard | Professional | Premium | |
Automates the process of creating common flow control devices and components such as sprues, runners, and gates. |
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| Sprues and Runners | Professional | Premium | |
Quickly and easily simulate the impact of the sprues and runners layout. |
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| Hot and Cold Runners | Professional | Premium | |
Hot runners are initially filled with hot polymer at the start of the filling simulation. |
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| Multi-cavity Molds | Professional | Premium | |
Simulates multiple cavities of the same part in the same mold. |
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| Family Molds | Professional | Premium | |
Simulates a set of different cavities parts in the same mold. |
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| Mold Inserts | Professional | Premium | |
Include the impact of mold inserts on the simulation |
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| Volumetric Shrinkage | Professional | Premium | |
Displays volumetric shrinkage distribution at the end of fill or pack. |
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| Density at End of Pack | Professional | Premium | |
Displays density distribution at post-filling end to check the pack phase quality. |
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| Exports STL, NASTRAN | Professional | Premium | |
Enables you to export part geometry in STL or NASTRAN formats |
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| Export with Mechanical Properties ABAQUS®, ANSYS, DigiMat® | Professional | Premium | |
Exports mesh, residual stress, fiber orientation and material data to run non-linear analysis. |
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| Cooling Lines | Premium | ||
Simulates the coolant flowing inside for the mold cooling analysis. |
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| Baffles and Bubblers | Premium | ||
Specific cooling line for narrow channel into the cavity. |
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| Conformal Cooling Channels | Premium | ||
Cooling passageway follows the shape or profile of the mold core or cavity to perform rapid uniform cooling process. |
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| Runner Domain Category | Premium | ||
Domain category assigned to the runner allows easy selection for runner’s conditions. |
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| Sink Mark Profiles | Premium | ||
Displays the location of sink marks and their depth. |
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| Mold Temperature at Cooling End | Premium | ||
Displays the mold temperature distribution at cooling end. |
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| Displacement Due to Residual Stress | Premium | ||
Displays the displacement distribution due to in-mold stress. |
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Why Choose SOLIDWORKS Plastics?
Reject Risk in Mold Injection with SOLIDWORKS Plastics
SOLIDWORKS Plastics takes the guesswork—and the risk—out of designing plastic parts, allowing you to accurately assess manufacturability, functionality, and quality, throughout the design process. The result is shortened cycle times, reduced defects, and the elimination of costly rework.
- Read more to learn how SOLIDWORKS Plastics enables you to eliminate expensive mold re-work, optimize part quality, and ensure manufacturability in a familiar, efficient environment by giving you the tools to:
- Prevent manufacturing errors. SOLIDWORKS Plastics lets users easily identify and correct potential manufacturing errors during the design process.
- Eliminate expensive mold rework. By sidestepping rework, manufacturers can save thousands of dollars and weeks of lost production time.
- Reduce the need for secondary processes. An optimized molding process cuts the need for secondary processes, such as polishing, deburring, or flash removal.
- Optimize manufacturing cycle times. Reducing cycle time requirements enables more cycles and more productivity.
- Perform tests quickly and accurately. Complex simulation functions are conducted through an intuitive, streamlined interface.
- Reduce material waste. Optimal placement of stringer channels and vents reduces material consumption.
Do You Have a SOLIDWORKS Plastics Success Plan?
SOLIDWORKS Support
The ability to support our customers is the cornerstone of our business. With 90+ engineers on staff available 12 hours per day, 5 days per week, our award-winning technical team can assist you with your SOLIDWORKS challenges in a timely manner.
Call: 888-285-2284
Email: support@cati.com
Support Hours: 7AM – 7PM Central Time
Support Days: Monday – Friday
SOLIDWORKS Training
SOLIDWORKS provides powerful tools, but without the right know-how, the full potential of these tools cannot be attained. CATI provides our customers with comprehensive SOLIDWORKS training in both beginning and advanced topics.
Instruction by our certified trainers is available throughout the year at our nationwide campuses. We focus on small class sizes that afford you the individual attention you need to learn and thrive.
Learn more about:
SOLIDWORKS Subscription
The SOLIDWORKS Subscription Service Program gives you immediate access to a number of items that will improve your CAD experience, expertise, and return on investment:
- Live, local tech support with CATI
- Software upgrades and new releases
- Free access to SOLIDWORKS CAM Standard and SOLIDWORKS Visualize Standard (for SOLIDWORKS Professional and Premium subscribers)
- Free CSWA and CSWP SOLIDWORKS Certification Exams
- Access to MySolidWorks eLearning
- SOLIDWORKS Customer Portal for info repository, enhancement requests, and beta access
Learn more in our SOLIDWORKS Subscription datasheet.
CATI Is Your SOLIDWORKS Plastics Success Plan
As North America’s first SOLIDWORKS partner, no one is more qualified to build and support your product development process. We believe everyone should have access to our curated portfolio of transformative engineering and manufacturing technologies.
By listening to and working with you, we will find the right solution for you at the right time, with an implementation and growth plan to support your business ambitions.
Get Started with SOLIDWORKS from CATI.
We’re ready to help figure out the right product development solution plan for you. Contact us today to get started with a quote, a free trial, a demo, or just ask questions.
