TRANSFINITE/FINITE ELEMENT FORMULATIONS FOR PREDICTING THERMAL/STRUCTURAL RESPONSE: CAE APPLICATIONS TO INJECTION MOLDING FOR PLASTIC COMPONENTS.

The paper describes two different computational approaches for simulating the effects due to temperature variations and the associated thermally induced stresses and warpage with emphasis on computer aided engineering applications to 'plastic' components. One approach is the conventional finite element approach and the other is termed the transfinite element approach. The development of unified thermal/stress formulations for each approach is described for applications to injection molded plastic parts. Results of both computational formulations agree for predicting the thermal response and unified thermal/stress response and agree qualitatively with previous studies. For this study, it is found that the transfinite element formulations are computationally more efficient although the conventional formulations can still be effectively used. Both formulations are capable of serving as powerful computational tools to help part designers to predict the thermal/stress responses. The unified concepts and approaches offer potential for extension to more complex geometries and for combined heat transfer and stress problems.