FEA provides the most sophisticated method of solving complex engineering problems. While FEA software covers a wide variety of solutions, structural and plastics analysis packages solve the majority of mold-related problems.

Typical structural problems might include calculating the deflection of a complex mold plate or the fatigue life for tall core inserts. Plastics analysis packages cover everything from evaluating the cooling layout efficiency, runner and gate design as well as filling packing and warpage.

For many analysis projects much of the difficulty and drudgery of early FEA programs has been eliminated. This involved building a finite element mesh and setting up initial conditions. For example, with some of the FEA products, the user never creates a finite element mesh, yet can analyze the cooling layout, runner and gate location and sizing as well as part filling, cooling and warpage.

The software reads part files indirectly in many native formats. The cooling and runner layout can be read in using centerline data from the tool design or created directly within the FEA package. There also are design wizards that provide basic layouts with minimal user input.

These can be useful for simpler designs or for initial analysis.

The same can be said for many structural analysis packages: often they do not require extensive knowledge of meshing or FEA. All of this software now runs well on typical PCs although extra memory is often beneficial.

Some of the more sophisticated solutions even couple the plastic and structural analysis for complex solutions to questions such as how much a core will deflect under injection