Partnership formed to optimize process simulation of LSR injection molding

SIGMA Engineering, a market leader in liquid silicone rubber (LSR) injection molding simulation, and Momentive Performance Materials, a leading manufacturer of silicone and silicone derivatives, formed strategic partnership in optimizing material data for silicone elastomers to make process simulation with SIGMASOFT Virtual Molding more reliable.

The challenge of this partnership is to produce high-precision components that exhibit both the highest thermal expansion and the greatest compressibility of all elastomers.

SIGMA Engineering and Momentive Performance Materials partnered to optimize material data for silicone elastomers with SIGMA’s SIGMASOFT.

"The more precise the material data in LSR processing, the more accurate the simulation can be. This is certainly an advantage for companies in the silicone processing industry,” explained Holger Albrecht, Vice President and Head of the Elastomer Business Unit at Momentive.

Using standardized laboratory values for the definition of material laws in the simulation is not sufficient to describe complex behavior of components. Observation and consideration of process parameters during processing is not yet part of conventional material data.

In future, it will be necessary to use data from real injection molding processing to refine and calibrate material data. This improves the reliability of the simulation results and the material data.