Integrating New Autodesk Simulation Moldflow CAD Doctor Functionality

Autodesk Simulation Moldflow CAD Doctor has long been a staple in a Simulation Moldflow Insight users process, specifically for easily fixing or modifying CAD geometry to make it suitable for meshing. With the new release of Simulation Moldflow CAD Doctor and Simulation Moldflow Insight though, a new process has been included to streamline this process and improve the quality of the final product.

First, it's important to understand the primary means of CAD Doctor exports previous to the 2013 release. A model would simply be brought into CAD Doctor, then modified/fixed, and finally exported as a *.udm file format. This is a Moldflow surface representation, and allowed easy translation into Moldflow.

With the new release of Simulation Moldflow CAD Doctor 2013, we've included the ability to export a *.sdy file that is representative of the native CAD kernel, after modifications and fixes have been made.  This provides a significantly higher quality model for meshing in Simulation Moldflow Insight.  The process though is important, because if you wish to export a *.sdy file, or the legacy *.udm process, it needs to be set at the onset.

The first step is to import the model in question to CAD Doctor, via either the default import (*.igs) or the MDL import.

Next you'll need to define the export format you want.  This is because the check/heal process is different depending on the format the file will be exported as and thus must be defined before doing anything else after import. Choosing Moldflow Study exports a *.sdy file, the new feature described above. Choosing Moldflow utilized the legacy process, in which a *.udm file will be exported.

Once the export format has been set, you can check and heal the model as appropriate. You'll also see that after running the check and heal, the ability to change the export format is no longer available. Note, the file must be healed before it is exported.

Now the part can be exported, and the format will be whatever was chosen before modifications/fixes were made to the part.

Finally, you can import your *.sdy file straight into Autodesk Simulation Moldflow Insight and be assured of a quality geometric representation that will improve your mesh quality.