CAE Simulation & Digital Twin for Plastic Parts

Process simulation (warpage/filling/cooling), structural FEA of plastics, and building a living design/manufacturing/field-data twin.

Private cohorts & on-site
Format: 3-day (8:30 a.m.–4:30 p.m.)
Level: Intermediate
Location: Scheduled on demand · on-site at your facility or a regional venue
Date(s): Not yet scheduled for open enrollment. Get notified when it is, or book it privately for your team.
Includes: Certificate of Completion · printed slide binder · take-home reference text

Get notified when this course is scheduled

One email when dates are set. Or skip the wait: run it as a private cohort, on-site at your plant.

Talk to us about a private cohort
  • One email, no sequence
  • Never shared
  • Reply within one business day

Faculty

Faculty details for this seminar will be announced with the full schedule.

Fees

Early: $1,895 (payment 4+ weeks ahead)
Standard: $2,095 (check/ACH) · $2,165 (card)

Group discount: $200 off per attendee for 3+ from the same organization.

Also Available

  • Corporate on-site delivery at your facility
  • Private cohort sessions
  • Digital curriculum licensing

Seminar Overview

Design reviews that only look at geometry are reviewing history; this seminar teaches the simulation layer that predicts behavior before tooling. Built on practitioner experience with Moldflow, Abaqus, structural FEA, and digital-twins, this course covers process simulation (warpage, filling, cooling), structural FEA of plastics (including viscoelastic and time-dependent behavior), and how to build a living digital-twin model of a part that bridges manufacturing outcomes to field performance. The output is a validation workflow your engineers can run on any new design.

Ideal Learner

  • CAE and simulation engineers specializing in plastics
  • Design engineers who direct or interpret simulation work
  • Product engineers validating parts for load, warpage, and durability
  • Engineering managers standing up digital-twin and PLM-linked simulation
  • Failure investigators who use simulation to reconstruct cases

Learning Objectives

  • Run and interpret injection-molding process simulation for warpage, filling, and cooling
  • Apply structural FEA to plastic parts with correct material models (including time-dependent)
  • Couple process-induced residual stress to structural performance
  • Validate simulation against physical testing and correct the model
  • Build and maintain a plastic-part digital twin linked to manufacturing and field data

Consulting Sessions

Seminar attendees can sign up for individual consulting sessions with the instructor. Sessions are free for registered attendees, first-come first-served — sign up when registering by calling 248-539-0473 or during the seminar.

Seminar Outline

  • Modeling filling, packing, and cooling with Moldflow-class tools
  • Gate, runner, and cooling-line effects on warpage and residual stress
  • Reading simulation outputs with engineering skepticism
  • Material models: elastic, viscoelastic, creep, temperature-dependent
  • Why steel-plastic modeling assumptions fail
  • Snap-fits, press-fits, living hinges: contact and non-linearity
  • Residual stress and warpage as boundary conditions
  • Crystallinity and orientation effects on structural response
  • Weld-line weakening and its structural implications
  • Instrumented testing vs. simulation: a verification loop
  • When to trust simulation, when to distrust it
  • Sensitivity and design-robustness analysis
  • Defining the twin: geometry + process + material + field data
  • Linking simulation to manufacturing sensors and field returns
  • Using the twin for design iteration, warranty prediction, and failure reconstruction
  • Attendees run a simplified part through simulation and structural FEA
  • Pair simulation output with a test plan
  • Present the validation story to a mock design review

More in Track A — Polymer Failure & Materials Science

Full Course Catalog