SOLIDWORKS Plastics
Predict and avoid manufacturing defects in plastic part and injection mold designs, eliminating costly rework, improving part quality, and decreasing time to market.
What is SOLIDWORKS Plastics?
SOLIDWORKS Plastics delivers easy-to-use simulation for analyzing plastic parts and injection molds. It simulates how melted plastic flows during the injection molding process to predict manufacturing-related defects so you can quickly evaluate part manufacturability while you design. This helps designers and engineers optimize their designs for manufacturing, reduce the need for costly physical prototypes, and accelerate product development cycles.
SOLIDWORKS Plastics Use Cases
Common use cases and integration points into your engineering workflow include:
Part Design Optimization
Predict and prevent manufacturing defects like sink marks, weld lines, and air traps during the design phase.
Mold Design Validation
Analyze mold filling, packing, and cooling to optimize mold layouts, gate locations, and cooling line designs.
Material Selection
Evaluate the manufacturability of different plastic materials for a given part design.
Cycle Time Reduction
Optimize injection molding parameters to minimize cycle time and improve production efficiency.
Warpage Prediction
Accurately predict and mitigate part warpage and shrinkage to ensure dimensional accuracy.
SOLIDWORKS Plastics Features & Benefits
SOLIDWORKS Plastics helps designers and engineers predict and avoid manufacturing defects in plastic parts and injection molds, leading to significant cost savings, improved part quality, and faster time to market. By simulating the injection molding process, it allows for early identification and resolution of potential issues, reducing the need for expensive physical prototypes and rework.
SOLIDWORKS Plastics Key Features
Fully embedded within SOLIDWORKS CAD for a seamless user experience.
Directly utilize existing SOLIDWORKS 3D CAD models for simulation.
Access a comprehensive database of plastic materials with customizable properties.
Automated and manual meshing tools for accurate simulation results.
Leverage multi-core processors for faster analysis times.
SOLIDWORKS Plastics Licensing & Packages
SOLIDWORKS Plastics offers multiple licensing options to fit your team’s plastic part and mold design analysis needs:
SOLIDWORKS Plastics Standard
Ensures parts are manufacturable during the design process. Easy to learn and use, SOLIDWORKS Plastics Standard is fully embedded within SOLIDWORKS CAD so you can analyze and modify part designs at the same time you optimize for form, fit, and function.
SOLIDWORKS Plastics Professional
Builds upon SOLIDWORKS Plastics Standard to analyze mold designs. With easy-to-use tools you can quickly analyze single-and multi-cavity, and family mold layouts including sprues, runners, and gates, to estimate cycle time, and to optimize feed system design.
SOLIDWORKS Plastics Premium
Includes SOLIDWORKS Plastics Professional with advanced simulation functionality to analyze mold cooling line layouts, and part warpage. Optimizing the cooling line minimizes cycle times and decreases manufacturing costs.
SOLIDWORKS Plastics Package Comparison
Quickly compare SOLIDWORKS Plastics packages to find the best fit for your team’s needs:
Comparison Matrix
Features
SOLIDWORKS Plastics Standard
SOLIDWORKS Plastics Professional
SOLIDWORKS Plastics Premium
Ease of Use
Design Data Reuse
Materials Database
Meshing
Parallel Computing (Multi-core)
Filling Phase (1st Stage Injection)
Instantaneous Fill Time Plot
Sink Mark Analysis
eDrawings Support
Fill Time
Ease of Fill
Results Adviser
Pressure at End of Fill
Flow Front Temperature
Temperature at End of Fill
Shear Rate
Cooling Time
Weld Lines
Air Traps
Sink Marks
Frozen Layer Fraction at End of Fill
Clamp Force
Cycle Time
Symmetry Analysis
Packing Phase (2nd Stage Injection)
Runner Balancing
Runner Design Wizard
Sprues and Runners
Hot and Cold Runners
Multi-cavity Molds
Family Molds
Mold Inserts
Volumetric Shrinkage
Density at End of Pack
Exports STL, NASTRAN
Export with Mechanical Properties ABAQUS®, ANSYS, DigiMat®
Cooling Lines
Baffles and Bubblers
Conformal Cooling Channels
Runner Domain Category
Sink Mark Profiles
Mold Temperature at Cooling End
Displacement Due to Residual Stress
SOLIDWORKS Plastics FAQs
How do I know I need SOLIDWORKS Plastics?
If you design plastic parts or injection molds and need to predict how the material will flow, SOLIDWORKS Plastics can help you catch issues like short shots, weld lines, and warping early in the design process. It’s especially useful for reducing mold rework and tooling costs. Learn more about when to use Plastics.
What's the difference between SOLIDWORKS Plastics vs Moldflow?
SOLIDWORKS Plastics is ideal if you’re designing parts or molds and want quick, built-in simulation tools inside SOLIDWORKS to catch defects early. Moldflow is more advanced and typically used by dedicated mold engineers or manufacturers running high-volume or highly specialized processes.
How much is SOLIDWORKS Plastics?
Pricing depends on the Plastics package (Standard, Professional, or Premium) and whether you need it bundled with other tools. For the most accurate quote, it’s best to talk with a reseller.
Related Resources
Blog & Articles
Discover how bringing injection-molding simulation in-house with SOLIDWORKS Plastics transformed one company’s production workflow. By integrating SOLIDWORKS Plastics Premium, they slashed mold iteration time—each “round trip” previously taking 2–3 weeks and costing thousands—by catching issues like knit lines and gas traps virtually. This not only accelerated time-to-market and cut development costs but also empowered them to win new business and drive R&D. Learn how simulation accuracy boosted efficiency and profitability across the board.
Discover which SOLIDWORKS Plastics package is right for your needs with this comprehensive comparison guide that breaks down Standard, Professional, and Premium tiers. It highlights capabilities such as part manufacturability analysis in Standard, advanced mold feed system evaluation in Professional, and sophisticated cooling-line and warpage optimization in Premium. Perfect for guiding design teams to the optimal balance of tools and cost for injection molding workflows.
Kickstart your plastic part designs with MLC CAD’s Getting Started with SOLIDWORKS Plastics guide! This friendly intro walks you through the five essential steps—model creation, choosing between solid or surface mesh, selecting polymer materials from a vast database, setting injection points, and running your first simulation—to help you predict common molding issues like short shots, weld lines, and warpage, all within the familiar SOLIDWORKS interface. Expect a smooth on-ramp into injection-molding analysis that’s accessible for beginners yet powerful enough for real-world applications.
Webinars & Videos
MLC CAD’s “SOLIDWORKS Plastics Overview” introduces how this powerful tool seamlessly integrates injection-molding simulation into your SOLIDWORKS workflow—letting you identify potential defects, optimize gate placement, and reduce tooling costs before any physical mold is built. By mimicking real-world melt flow, cool-down, and shrinkage, it helps prevent issues like air traps, weld lines, and warpage early in design. With packages from Standard to Premium, users can tailor capabilities to match their manufacturing needs, ensuring efficiency and quality in every plastic part analysis.
Explore MLC CAD’s Exploring the Power of SOLIDWORKS Plastics 2024 and discover how the latest release turbocharges your injection-molding simulation workflow. Packed with fresh features and interface enhancements, this guide highlights faster mesh generation, expanded material databases, improved warpage and cooling analysis, and enhanced results visualization. Whether you’re optimizing gate placement or managing complex multi-cavity molds, the 2024 update empowers designers and engineers to validate plastic parts more efficiently and accurately—before any tooling is built.