Defining Valve Gates

You can create valve gates automatically for all locations between hot runners and cavities, or you can create a single valve gate at a specific location. All automatically created valve gates use automatic gate control, which means that they open automatically when the polymer melt front passes the valve location. For manually defined valve gates, you can specify automatic gate control or gate control that depends on the percentage of cavity filled or the percent of time elapsed.

This task shows you how to:

See Also
About Valve Gates

Define Valve Gates Automatically for the Entire Hot Runner System

You can create valve gates automatically for all locations between hot runners and cavities. All automatically created valve gates use automatic gate control, which means that they open automatically when the polymer melt front passes the valve location.

From the Conditions section of the action bar, click Auto-Valve Gates .

The app searches for locations between hot runners and cavities and attempts to create valve gates in those locations. If your simulation has no hot runners or no intersections between hot runner parts and other parts, no valve gates are created.

Defining a Single Valve Gate in a Specific Location

  1. From the Conditions section of the action bar, click Valve Gate .
  2. Optional: Enter a descriptive Name.
  3. Specify the support where you to want to place the valve gate.
  4. From the Control options, select one of the following methods to describe how the valves open and close:
    OptionDescription
    Automatic Opens automatically when the polymer melt front passes the valve location. After opening, automatically opened valves remain open for the rest of the Filling simulation.
    Percent volume Opens and closes based on the percentage of the cavity volume that is filled.
    Percent time Opens and closes based on the elapsed time since the start of Filling.
  5. Click OK.