Ansys 2021 R1 delivers significant improvements in simulation technology together with nearly unlimited computing power to help engineers across all industries reimagine product design and achieve product development goals that were previously thought to be impossible.
Ansys Mechanical delivers features to enable faster simulations, easier workflows, journaling, scripting and product integrations that offer more solver capabilities. Within this new release, interface and performance capabilities have been enhanced to offer greater ease of use and overall efficiency in nearly every circumstance.
Join PADT’s Simulation Support Manager and Ansys expert Ted Harris, for an overview of what updates in this release best energize this tool, such as enhancements made to:
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Whether leveraging improved workflows or leading-edge capabilities with Ansys 2021 R1, teams are tackling design challenges head on, eliminating the need to make costly workflow tradeoffs, developing next-generation innovations with increased speed and significantly enhancing productivity, all in order to deliver high-quality products to market faster than ever.
When it comes to high frequency electromagnetics, Ansys 2021 R1 delivers a plethora of groundbreaking enhancements. Ansys HFSS Mesh Fusion enables simulation of large, never before possible electromagnetic systems with efficiency and scalability. This release also allows for encrypted 3D components supported in HFSS 3D Layout for PCBs, IC packages and IC designs to enable suppliers to share detailed 3D component designs for creating highly accurate simulations.
Join PADT’s Lead Electromagnetics Engineer and high frequency expert Michael Griesi for a presentation on updates made to the Ansys HF suite in the 2021 R1 release, including advancements for:
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You will only have to do this once! For all future webinars, you can simply click the link, add the reminder to your calendar and you’re good to go!
Getting zapped by static electricity at the personal level
is merely annoying; having your sensitive electronic equipment buzzed is
another, highly destructive story.
Much as you’d like to send these components out into the
world wearing their own little anti-static wristbands, that’s just not
practical (and actually, not good enough*). During build and use, advanced
electronics applications need true charge-dissipative protection that is
inherent to their design and easy to achieve. However, the typical steps of
painting or coating, covering with conductive tape, or wrapping with
carbon-filled/aluminum-coated films incur both time and cost.
Electrostatic dissipative (ESD) polymer materials instead provide this kind of protection on a built-in basis, offering a moderately conductive “exit path” that naturally dissipates the charge build-up that can occur during normal operations. It also prevents powders, dust or fine particles from sticking to the surface. Whether the task is protecting circuit boards during transport and testing, or ensuring that the final product works as designed throughout its lifetime, ESD materials present low electrical resistance while offering the required mechanical, and often thermal and/or chemically-resistant properties.
ESD-safe fixture for testing a printed-circuit board, produced by 3D printing with Stratasys ABS-ESD7 material. (Image courtesy of Stratasys)
Combining ESD Behavior with 3D Printing
All the features that are appealing with 3D printing carry
over when printing with ESD-enabled thermoplastics. You can print trays custom-configured
to hold circuit-boards for in-process testing, print conformal fixtures that
speed up sorting, and produce end-use structures for projects where static
build-up is simply not allowed (think mission-critical aerospace applications).
Acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS), that work-horse of
the plastics industry, has been available as 3D printing filament for decades.
Along the way, Stratasys
and other vendors started offering this filament in a version filled with
carbon particles that decrease the plastic’s inherent electrical resistance.
Stratasys ABS-ESD7 runs on the Fortus 380, 400, 450 and 900 industrial systems,
and soon will be available on the office-friendly F370 printer.
What kind of performance does ABS-ESD7 offer? When
evaluating materials for ESD performance, the most important property is
usually the surface resistance, measured in ohms. (This is not the same as surface
resistivity, plus there’s also volume resistivity – see Note at end). Conductive
materials – typically metals – have a surface resistance generally less than 103
ohms, insulators such as most plastics are rated at greater than 1012
ohms, and ESD materials fall in the mid-range, at 106 to 109
ohms.
Compared to standard ABS filament, ABS-ESD7 offers more than five orders of magnitude lower resistance, converting it from an insulator to a material that provides an effective static-discharge path to the outside world. Due to the inherent layered structure of FDM parts, the differences in properties between flat (XY) and vertical (ZX) build orientations produces a range of resistance values, with a target of 107 ohms, reflected in the product name of ABS-ESD7. Stratasys offers an excellent, easy-to-read FAQ paper about ABS-ESD7.
Printed-circuit board production tool, custom 3D-printed in Stratasys ABS-ESD7 material for built-in protection from electrostatic discharge during test and handling. (Image courtesy of Stratasys)
When ABS isn’t strong enough or won’t hold up to temperature extremes, engineers can turn to Stratasys’ ESD-enhanced polyetherketoneketone (PEKK), termed Antero 840CN03. Developed in 2016 and slated for full release in October 2019, this new filament expands the company’s Antero line of high-temperature, chemically resistant formulations. The PEKK base material offers a high glass transition temperature (Tg 149C, compared to 108C for ABS-ESD7) while meeting stringent outgassing and cleanroom requirements. As with ABS-ESD7, the carbon-nanotube loading lowers electrical resistance values of Antero 840CN03 parts to the desirable “ESD safe” range of 106 to 109 ohm.
Setting up Parts for Printing with ESD-Enhanced Filament
Support structures in contact with part walls/surfaces can disturb the surface resistance behavior. To counter-act this condition for filament printing with any type of ESD material, users should perform a special calibration that makes the printer lay down slightly thinner-than-usual layers of support material. In Stratasys Insight software, this is currently accomplished by setting the Support Offset Thickness to -0.003; this decreases the support layers from 0.010 inches to 0.007 inches. In addition, supports should be removed (in Insight software) from holes that are smaller in diameter than 0.25 inches (6.35mm).
As more of these materials are developed, the software will be updated to automatically create supports with this process in mind.
ESD Applications for 3D Printing
Avionics boxes, fixtures for holding and transporting
circuit boards, storage containers for fuel, and production-line conveyor
systems are just a few examples of end-use applications of ESD-enabled
materials. Coupled with the geometric freedom offered by 3D printing, three
categories of manufacturing and operations are improved:
Protecting electronics from ESD damage (static
shock)
If you’re exploring how 3D printing with ESD-enhanced
materials can help with your industrial challenge, contact our PADT
Manufacturing group: get your questions answered, have some sample parts
printed, and discover what filament is right for you.
PADT Inc.
is a globally recognized provider of Numerical Simulation, Product Development
and 3D Printing products and services. For more information on Insight, GrabCAD
and Stratasys products, contact us at info@padtinc.com.
*Anti-static is a qualitative term and refers to something that prevents build-up of static, rather than dissipating what does occur
Surface Resistance,
Surface Resistivity and Volume Resistivity
Surface resistance in ohms is a
measurement to evaluate static-dissipative packaging materials.
The standard
for measuring surface resistance of ESD materials is EOS/ESD S11.11, released
in 1993 by the ESD
Association as an improvement over ASTM D-257 (the classic standard
for evaluating insulators). Driving this need was the non-homogeneous structure
of ESD materials (conductive material added to plastic), which had a different
effect on testing parameters such as voltage or humidity, than found with evaluating conductors.
Volume resistivity is yet a third
possible measured electrical property, though again better suited for true conductors
rather than ESD material. It depends on the area of the ohmeter’s electrodes
and the thickness of the material sample. Units are ohm-cm or ohm-m.
