CAD Industry News

IronCAD launches Design Collaboration Suite 2020

December 4, 2019 By Leslie Langnau Leave a Comment

IronCAD, the 3D CAD platform of choice among metal fabricators and custom machinery manufacturers, unveiled IRONCAD 2020 and it’s got more than just perfect vision for design productivity. Designed to increase productivity for CAD software users to get their products to market faster, this release focuses on performance, commonly asked usability items, and continued improvements on key functionality that sets IronCAD apart in the design process.

Every year, IronCAD users submit feedback with enhancement requests that matter the most for increasing the design productivity or improving the 3D to production drawing process. The IRONCAD 2020 release delivers improved large assembly performance, streamlined workflows, and new capabilities that help users design, present, and communicate their ideas faster and easier. This year’s release, the main focus was on improving the ICD (IronCAD Drawing Environment) to increase productivity. With this in mind, our goal was to improve the 3D to 2D detailing process to reduce the design to manufacturing timing with better performance, improved commands, better accessibility to common commands, faster drawing creation with our automated bulk view creation tool that enable users to go from concept to manufactured products faster.

Beyond the IronCAD Drawing Environment, IronCAD delivered performance improvements for working with large assemblies. This significant development was implemented to increase the system’s performance and to take advantage of newer hardware with multiple cores. In addition, many functional items were added to streamline the interaction with large assemblies, such as additional improvements in our Shrink Wrap commands for condensing large assemblies into workable reference geometry. With IronCAD 2020, noticeable improvements can be found importing, opening, saving, and working daily with large assembly files.

Examples amongst the new improvements in IRONCAD 2020 are:

· Large Assembly Performance – Open/Save/Import speed is improved for files that contain large structures that may have large assembly trees containing many nodes under individual assembly levels. Changes implemented have significant improvements in speed in all areas while working on large assemblies that range from 30-50% improvement.

· Real-time Interchanging of Full and Lightweight Models – Using IronCAD’s Shrink Wrap capabilities to create lightweight versions of parts and assemblies, you can dynamically interchange the fully detailed model and the lightweight model within an assembly file. This capability significantly improves the interaction with large assemblies not only on load/save but while design within the context of the full assembly.

· Many Technical Drawing/Detailing Improvements – IronCAD 2020 focused heavily on improving the speed from taking 3D Designs into production drawings ready for manufacturing. Speed improvements in creating and editing dimensions with quick access to dimension properties, Automatic Break Line support, Overall View Dimensions, 2D Catalogs support for reusable Annotations, and Spell Checker are among some of the many improvements added to improve the process.

· Commonly Requested Functionality – Focus was given to provide functionality commonly requested by our industry users. Command Search, Dockable Catalogs, 4K Support, Feature Fill Pattern, Sheet Metal Conversion and Layflat Design feature are among items added to enhance the design experience with IronCAD.

“Expanding on our recent 20th year release capabilities, IronCAD 2020 gains a significant leap in the ability to work and manage large assembly files commonly used among our custom machinery manufacturers” stated Cary O’Connor, V.P. of Marketing of IronCAD. “Users will feel improvements to the performance while working in 3D all the way through to the final production drawing output with the many improvements developed in the IronCAD Drawing Environment to speed up and aid the detailing process” he continued.

IronCAD
www.ironcad.com

COMSOL launches Version 5.5 of COMSOL Multiphysics

November 15, 2019 By Leslie Langnau Leave a Comment

COMSOL, a leading provider of software solutions for multiphysics modeling, simulation, and application design and deployment, announces the latest version of its COMSOL Multiphysics software. In version 5.5, the Design Module provides an entirely new sketching tool for easier creation and more versatile parametric control of geometry models. New and updated solvers speed up a range of simulations. Two new add-on products, the Porous Media Flow Module and the Metal Processing Module, further expand the product suite’s multiphysics modeling power.

Parametric sketching with dimensions
The Design Module provides a new sketching tool that makes it easy to assign dimensions and constraints to planar drawings for 2D models and 3D work planes. “We have carefully integrated the new dimensions and constraints tool in the Model Builder so that it becomes a natural part of the COMSOL Multiphysics workflow,” said Daniel Bertilsson, technology manager for mathematics and computer science at COMSOL. “The new tools for dimensions and constraints can be used together with model parameters in COMSOL Multiphysics to drive the simulation, whether for a single run, parametric sweep, or parametric optimization.”

Parametric optimization of fluid flow in a microvalve using the new sketching tool with dimensions and constraints capabilities available in the Design Module.

New solver technology for Acoustics Simulations
Ultrasound technology is becoming increasingly important in a range of applications spanning from process engineering and nondestructive testing to consumer electronics. New functionality based on the time-explicit discontinuous Galerkin method enables efficient multicore computations of ultrasound propagation in solids and fluids, including realistic materials featuring damping and anisotropy. The method also has low-frequency applications, such as in seismology. The included multiphysics capabilities can seamlessly combine linear elastic wave propagation in a solid and its transition to a fluid as an acoustic pressure wave, and back again. The new elastic wave functionality is available for users of the Structural Mechanics Module, MEMS Module, and Acoustics Module. The fluid-structure acoustics coupling is available in the Acoustics Module.

Sound pressure field in a car interior solved with the finite element method at 7 kHz using a specialized solver for wave propagation analysis.

For frequency-domain simulations, a specialized solver for wave propagation analysis makes it possible to handle higher frequencies (shorter wavelengths) using the finite element method. The new solver can be used to analyze enclosed structures such as that of a car cabin interior as well as other acoustics simulations.

Introducing the Metal Processing Module
The new Metal Processing Module makes metal phase transformation analysis accessible within the COMSOL Multiphysics environment for applications within welding, heat treatment, and metal additive manufacturing. “The Metal Processing Module makes it possible to predict deformations, stresses, and strains resulting from wanted or unwanted heat-driven phase changes in metals,” said Mats Danielsson, technical product manager at COMSOL. “The module can be combined with any of the other COMSOL products for virtually any kind of multiphysics analysis that includes metal phase change. We envision users combining this with, for example, the Heat Transfer Module for the influence of heat radiation, the Ac/dc Module for induction hardening, and the Nonlinear Structural Materials Module for highly predictive analysis of material behavior.”

Residual stresses in a spur gear after quenching, calculated using the Metal Processing Module.

Introducing the Porous Media Flow Module

The Porous Media Flow Module gives users within, for example, food, pharmaceutical, and biomedical industries a wide range of transport analysis capabilities for porous media. The new add-on product includes functionality for single- and multiphase flow in porous media, drying, and transport in fractures. The flow models cover linear and nonlinear flow in saturated and variably saturated media with special options for slow and fast porous media flows. The multiphysics simulation capabilities are extensive, with functionality that includes options for calculating effective thermal properties for multicomponent systems; poroelasticity; and transport of chemical species in solid, liquid, and gas phases.

Simulation of a packed bed latent heat storage tank, using the Porous Media Flow Module.

Simplified Shape and Topology Optimization with the Optimization Module
Users working with mechanical, acoustics, electromagnetics, heat, fluid, and chemical analysis have been able to perform shape and topology optimization in COMSOL Multiphysics for many years. The Optimization Module now offers simplified setup of shape optimization with new built-in features such as moving boundaries parameterized by polynomials and built-in support for shell thickness optimization. A new smoothing operation for topology optimization ensures higher-quality geometry outputs that can be used for additional analysis and additive manufacturing. COMSOL Multiphysics now has general support for import and export of the additive manufacturing formats PLY and 3MF, in addition to the STL format that is already available.

Shape optimization of a sheet metal bracket using the Optimization Module. The structure is subjected to a bending load resulting in ridges in the optimal design.

Nonlinear Shell Analysis, Pipe Mechanics, and Random Vibration Analysis
A wide range of nonlinear analysis options are now available for shells and composite shells, including plasticity, creep, viscoplasticity, viscoelasticity, hyperelasticity, and mechanical contact. The mechanical contact modeling functionality has been extended to support any combination of solids and shells, including solid-shell, solid-composite shell, and membrane-shell. Depending on the type of analysis, these improvements will be available to users of the Structural Mechanics Module, Nonlinear Structural Materials Module, and Composite Materials Module.

For users of the Structural Mechanics Module, a new user interface for pipe mechanics provides functionality to perform stress analysis of pipe systems. The new functionality can handle a variety of pipe cross sections and can include effects from external loads, internal pressure, axial drag forces, and temperature gradients through the pipe wall.

Users of the Structural Mechanics Module can now perform random vibration analysis to study the response to loads that are represented by their power spectral density (PSD).

This allows users to include loads that are random in nature, such as turbulent wind gusts or road-induced vibrations on a vehicle. The loads can be fully correlated, uncorrelated, or have a specific user-given correlation.

The Multibody Dynamics Module provides new functionality for analyzing rigid and elastic chain drives with automatic generation of the large number of links and joints needed for modeling chain drives.

Elastic chain drive analysis in the Multibody Dynamics Module. Colors and arrows show the velocity and velocity direction, respectively, in the chain and sprockets.

Compressible Euler Flow and Nonisothermal Large Eddy Simulations
Users of the CFD Module will get new interfaces for compressible Euler flow and nonisothermal large eddy simulations (LES). In addition, the flow interfaces for rotating machinery now support the level set and phase field methods as well as Euler–Euler and bubbly flow. The Heat Transfer Module comes with a new interface for lumped thermal systems, an equivalent circuit modeling approach for heat transfer simulations. Radiation in semitransparent (participating) media now supports multiple spectral bands, and a new open boundary formulation for convective flow reduces solution time by 30%.

Multiscale Wave and Ray Optics, Piezoelectric Shells, and PCB Ports
The Ray Optics Module can now be combined with the RF Module or Wave Optics Module for simultaneous full-wave and ray tracing simulations. This enables multiscale modeling, such as analyzing a waveguide beaming into a large room, where using a full-wave simulation would be computationally prohibitive. Combining the AC/DC Module and the Composite Materials Module, users can now analyze layered materials with both dielectric and piezoelectric layers in thin structures. In the RF Module, a set of new ports for vias and transmission lines makes setup much quicker and gives more control to the user for modeling of printed circuit boards.

Efficient Distribution of Standalone Applications
COMSOL Compiler enables you to create standalone applications based on COMSOL Multiphysics models with specialized user interfaces that have been built with the Application Builder. Compiled applications require only COMSOL Runtime — no COMSOL Multiphysics or COMSOL Server license is required. “Since the release of COMSOL Compiler last fall, we have seen great response from our Application Builder users with this new possibility of distributing their applications in standalone form,” said Daniel Ericsson, application product manager at COMSOL. The latest version of COMSOL Compiler has a new compile option for generating minimum-sized files for easier distribution. When the user launches an application for the first time, where the new compile option has been used, COMSOL Runtime is downloaded and installed, if needed, from COMSOL’s website. Only one instance of COMSOL Runtime is needed for applications using the same COMSOL version. COMSOL Runtime has a size of about 350 MB and an application file can be as small as a few MB.

The COMSOL Runtime installer for standalone applications created with the Application Builder and compiled with COMSOL Compiler.

Highlights in Version 5.5:

–New sketching tool with dimensions and constraints

–Fast linear elastic wave simulations

–New Metal Processing Module for welding, heat treatment, and metal additive manufacturing

–New Porous Media Flow Module for food, pharmaceutical, and biomedical industries

–Improved tools for shape and topology optimization for mechanical, acoustics, electromagnetics, heat, fluid, and chemical analysis

–Import and export of the 3D printing and additive manufacturing formats PLY and 3MF

–Editing tools for repair of STL, PLY, and 3MF files

–Structural analysis of nonlinear shells, pipe mechanics, random vibration, and chain drives

–Compressible Euler flow and nonisothermal large eddy simulation (LES)

–Rotating machinery with level set, phase field, Euler–Euler, and bubbly flow

–Lumped thermal system equivalent circuits

–Multiple spectral bands for radiation in participating media

–More efficient open boundary condition for convective heat transfer

–Use of thermodynamic database properties in any simulation type

–Combined full wave and ray optics simulations

–Piezoelectric and dielectric shells

–New PCB ports for vias and transmission lines

–Link images to Microsoft PowerPoint presentations

–Create your own add-ins for customizing the Model Builder workflow

–Minimal file size standalone applications with COMSOL Compiler

Availability
COMSOL Multiphysics, COMSOL Server, and COMSOL Compiler software products are supported on the following operating systems: Windows, Linux, and macOS. The Application Builder tool is supported in the Windows operating system.

To browse version 5.5 release highlights, visit: www.comsol.com/release/5.5

To download the latest version, visit: www.comsol.com/product-download

COMSOL

Developing a zero-emission, all-electric regional commuter aircraft

November 12, 2019 By Leslie Langnau Leave a Comment

Dassault Systèmes announced that the electric air mobility pioneer, Eviation Aircraft, used the 3DEXPERIENCE platform on the cloud to develop the first prototype of its zero-emission, all-electric regional commuter aircraft – Alice – in two years.

In the race to create and commercialize new categories of sustainable air mobility systems, Eviation Aircraft accelerated the prototype’s development by deploying the “Reinvent the Sky” industry solution experience based on the 3DEXPERIENCE platform. This scalable cloud solution supported the company’s holistic approach to 3D, composite design and flow simulation with improved collaboration while securing data in a single, standards-based environment.

“The electrification of aircraft isn’t a question of if, but when. As we aim to make clean regional air travel accessible for all, we needed to be able to make a product that people trust, sit in and fly, and do it quickly,” said Omer Bar-Yohay, CEO, Eviation Aircraft. “The right way to go about it was to use tools that we would want to use in the long run, and to work in the cloud to ensure fast, secure access and global collaboration. When we selected the 3DEXPERIENCE platform, we were an early-stage startup with limited resources and time. We’ve developed our commercial-stage prototype faster than we imagined, and have already signed our first customer in the U.S.”

Eviation Aircraft realized that transforming a prototype into a product that can be manufactured by the hundreds each year would require empowering its engineers with the long-term knowledge and know-how to build it to maturity for the next generation.

Once commercialized, Alice will be the world’s first all-electric regional commuter aircraft, capable of carrying nine passengers and two crew on a single charge for 650 miles at 10,000 feet.

Dassault Systèmes
www.3ds.com

Siemens expands SaaS offerings to Simcenter Amesim and Simcenter 3D

October 31, 2019 By Leslie Langnau Leave a Comment

Siemens Digital Industries Software announces the availability of Simcenter 3D software and Simcenter Amesim software delivered as a service. Through a strategic collaboration between Siemens and Rescale, a leader in enterprise big computing, engineers can gain immediate, cost-effective software-as-a-service (SaaS) access to simulation tools. Particularly useful for small to medium-sized businesses, the SaaS framework offers tiered product bundles in which customers can select the right level of capabilities they need, as well as monthly subscription-based billing and licensing and a pay-per-use computing infrastructure.

Large enterprises can also benefit from the availability of Simcenter on the Rescale cloud platform with multiple flexible licensing options available to solve specific business challenges. SaaS licensing can be used to add short-term software licenses in times of peak usage or bring your own licensing (BYOL) can be used to let Simcenter customers leverage their existing investments when high-performance computing (HPC) capabilities are needed.

Siemens is committed to using the cloud to deliver its software and make high quality simulation capabilities available to all businesses. In addition to Simcenter Amesim and Simcenter 3D, Simcenter Nastran and Simcenter STAR-CCM+ can be accessed through the cloud so that companies of all sizes can create and simulate digital twins of their products, on-demand on an established HPC platform.

Siemens Digital Industries Software
www.dex.siemens.com/plm/simcenter-on-the-cloud

RBF Morph speeds real-time design-data feedback

October 25, 2019 By WTWH Editor Leave a Comment

As engineers in industry and research look to develop Digital Twins of their physical products—with the longer-term goal of integration with the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT)—the pivotal importance of up-front, accurate, real-time modeling and simulation to optimize both manufacturing and product performance is clear.

Enabling the development of this function is RBF Morph, a technology embedded within ANSYS’ newly released R3 version of its advanced engineering software suite, in particular the ANSYS Twin Builder systems-design tool. Also available as a standalone product, RBF Morph provides advanced mesh-morphing capabilities that enable rapid prediction of the outcomes of design changes. Based on radial basis functions (RBF) the software is used to drive mesh-smoothing (morphing) from source points and their displacements.

Mesh morphing is needed for reduced-order modeling (ROM), which allows physics-based analysis of product performance and durability to be carried out more accurately and in much less time than traditional methods. “Developing ROM within ANSYS has been a priority for us,” says Michel Rochette, Director of Research at ANSYS. “Merging physics-based understanding with manufacturing analytics delivers the insights that unlock the value of the Digital Twin. The mathematical techniques behind ROM require that everything has the same mesh topology for all the geometrical parameters in your model—and RBF Morph provides that.”

RBF Morph has been offered within ANSYS Mechanical and ANSYS Fluent CFD capabilities for several years. The new coupling with Twin Builder underscores the value of the technology to Digital-Twin functionality, which optimizes control of a company’s product and/or equipment assets. “If you want to include real-time 3D simulation in your Digital-Twin approach it is mandatory to have the approximation that a reduced-order model can provide,” says Rochette. “The future of the IIoT is being built on that, thanks to ROM and RBF Morph.”

Industrial application with RBF Morph – RINA

RINA, a leading global provider of engineering consulting for industrial services and advanced technology, has an ongoing partnership with RBF Morph to offer Digital-Twin-based workflows for product development. (RINA, ANSYS, RBF Morph and others are currently partnering in a 4-million Euros project on medical digital twins: meditate-project.eu).

RINA uses RBF Morph design technology to explore a turbine blade’s design space quickly and determine the effects of design changes.

For a turbine-blade project, RINA was looking for a methodology to quickly predict how any redesigns would affect the blade’s structural response and aerodynamics. The goal was to modify the curved fillet region at the root of the blade to reduce the stress concentration and increase service life by limiting fatigue.

Rather than create a new geometry, mesh and simulation for each design iteration, RINA used RBF Morph, in conjunction with ANSYS Mechanical, to explore the blade’s design space efficiently and determine the effects of design changes.

Meshing the original blade design and using finite element analysis (FEA), the engineers calculated a maximum principal stress of about 195 MPa; the stress peak occurred close to the point where the cross section of the blade had an important geometrical variation. The engineers were looking to smooth out the force and reduce peak stress by adopting a larger radius at the root of the fillet.

The RBF Morph process RINA used involved varying the positions of two curves that controlled the shape of the fillet. First the mesh’s nodes were extracted to follow the new shape of the fillet; the engineers specified how the nodes could move as the mesh’s volume morphed along the new curves. They were also able to define nodes that stayed fixed during the morph. With the right inputs, the engineers were able to control the morphing process so the volume and surfaces deformed smoothly and properly. Ultimately 125,000 nodes were updated in just 15 seconds to accommodate the deformation without excessively degrading the quality of the mesh.

SPINNER uses RBF Morph technology to asses the geometry of different sizes of vertebral screws.

With their RBF Morph procedure established, RINA’s engineers then carried out a two-parameter optimization of the fillet control points using response surface methods, design of experiments (DoE) and parallel plots. These tools allowed the engineers to identify the optimal blade design where the stress was spread out and had a smaller peak. The result: a substantial stress reduction of 22.5 percent in the optimal blade design.

“We found that using RBF Morph was intuitive, effective, and fast,” says Emiliano Costa, Senior Engineering Specialist for Industrial Design & CAE at RINA. “We now include RBF Morph in our design processes to help us more quickly develop better solutions for our customers.”

“This RBF Morph/ROM shape-parametrization methodology used by RINA to optimize turbine blade designs enables the ‘squeezing’ of high-fidelity CAE simulations into real-time Digital Twins,” says RBF Morph founder and CTO Marco Evangelos Biancolini. “When integrated via the IIoT, the technology is ultimately intended to support field-equipment maintenance—tracking performance and predicting or detecting worn parts in need of repair or redesign.”

Medical application with RBF Morph – SPINNER

SPINNER is a European Community-funded doctoral training program aimed at early-stage bioengineering researchers, with the goal of training them to design the next generation of repair materials and techniques for spine surgery. A recent project focused on the planning of surgeries to treat vertebral fractures, which are often repaired by means of rods and screws implanted directly into a patient’s individual vertebral bodies. SPINNER Ph.D. candidate Marco Sensale carried out a sensitivity analysis supported by RBF Morph to estimate the influence of the size of the screw on the amount of stress in the screw and strain in the vertebra.

“The two parameters that determine the size of commercial medical screws are the length and the diameter, which have to be chosen during the planning for each individual patient,” Sensale says. “This choice is often based on anatomic measures as well as the experience of the surgeon. By modeling Digital Twins of individual vertebras and screws that have different geometries we can rapidly perform simulations to identify which relationships between different parameters will lead to surgical success for a particular patient.”

Sensale used RBF technology to update only the nodal positions of his models, instead of remeshing the geometry every time as he changed the length of the screw. This provided results more quickly with each iteration. He also modelled an offset to the lateral surface of the screw in a similar fashion in order to explore the stress resulting from different screw diameters (Image B2). Preliminary results of this ongoing study show the least amount of overall stress (MPa) within those screws that are slightly longer and wider in diameter.

A second arm of the research examined peak minimum principal strain in the vertebra itself (Image B3) after implantation of a screw. Preliminary results indicate the least percentage of strain in the bone when a slightly wider, longer screw is used.

With research ongoing, Sensale says, “We are working to provide quantitative information to support surgeons in their decision-making and RBF Morph tool is providing us with a valuable tool for this project.” Adds RBF’s Biancolini, “Thanks to medical Digital Twins like those being created for this SPINNER project, surgeons will be able to plan for, practice, and achieve the best outcomes for each patient they treat.”

Availability for both commercial and student applications

Biancolini, Associate Professor of Machine Design at the University of Rome, appreciates the broad reach of applications for which his software is being used. “Digital Twins are the future of enterprises of all sizes,” he says. “Now that large solver capacity and high-performance computing are available and considered standard resources for product design, a wide range of industry users can take advantage of our technology to help them optimize their designs at lightening speeds.”

RBF Morph technology is offered to ANSYS users in two products: an ACT Extension for ANSYS Mechanical and an add-on for ANSYS Fluent. The ACT Extension is available on the ANSYS App Store both as a commercial version and both as a no-cost version as a companion to the Free Academic software of ANSYS.

RBF Morph
Rbf-morph.com

PTC to acquire Onshape

October 24, 2019 By Leslie Langnau Leave a Comment

PTC announced that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Onshape, creators of Software as a Service (SaaS) product development platform that unites computer aided design (CAD) with data management and collaboration tools, for approximately $470 million, net of cash acquired.
The acquisition is expected to accelerate PTC’s ability to attract new customers with a SaaS-based product offering and position the company to capitalize on the inevitable industry transition to SaaS. Pending regulatory approval and satisfaction of other closing conditions, the transaction is expected to be completed in November 2019.

Located in Cambridge, MA, Onshape was founded in 2012 by CAD pioneers and tech legends, including Jon Hirschtick, John McEleney, and Dave Corcoran, inventors and former executives of SolidWorks. Onshape has secured more than $150 million in funding from leading venture capital firms and has more than 5,000 subscribers around the world. The company’s software offering is delivered in a SaaS model, making it accessible from any connected location or device, eliminating the need for costly hardware and administrative staff to maintain. Distributed and mobile teams of designers, engineers, and others can benefit from the product’s cloud nature, enabling them to improve collaboration and to dramatically reduce the time needed to bring new products to market – while simultaneously staying current with the latest software.

This acquisition is the logical next step in PTC’s overall evolution to a recurring revenue business model, the first step of which was the company’s transition to subscription licensing, completed in January 2019. The SaaS model, while nascent in the CAD and PLM market, is rapidly becoming industry best practice across most other software domains.

Onshape will operate as a business unit within PTC, with current management reporting directly to PTC President and CEO Jim Heppelmann.

Barclays acted as exclusive financial advisor to PTC on the transaction.

PTC
www.ptc.com

Quality Information Framework (QIF) for translation and validation to/from CAD

October 14, 2019 By WTWH Editor Leave a Comment

Elysium, a world leader in 3D-geometry handling, interoperability, data translation and quality-checking software, will release a solution for multi-CAD to/from QIF for translation and validation between users. The added capability will be part of the new release of ASFALIS software planned for early 2020.

A Quality Information Framework (QIF) is an XML architecture that defines, organizes, and associates quality information needed in manufacturing systems. With the rising demand for digital data utilization throughout the entire supply chain, and specifically within the measurement-and-inspection stage, QIF was created by DMSC, accredited by ANSI, to address pressing industry requirements.

The new solution will semantically connect the design, manufacturing and inspection phases and streamline design to inspection and quality management workflow. With this capability, users will be able to translate CAD geometry and Product Manufacturing Information (PMI) to QIF and import high-quality data to QIF-supported metrology software and hardware.

In addition, Elysium will offer advanced solutions such as:

* Validation between native CAD data and translated QIF data

* Validation between original QIF data and QIF data after editing

* Translation from edited QIF to CAD

“We’re providing a sensible solution for streamlining the manufacturing process by supporting the QIF lead taken by DMSC, where Elysium has a strong presence,” said Atsuto Soma, CTO at Elysium. “With translation tools between multi-CAD and QIF not yet widely developed in industry, manufacturers throughout the world have high expectations for a forthcoming solution. Elysium has advanced its geometry handling and CAD translation technologies significantly over the years—while continually strengthening genuine partnerships with major CAD vendors. Elysium hopes to better enable manufacturers in their Model-Based Definition and Enterprise (MBD/E) initiatives through its on-going support of QIF translation and validation.”

Elysium
www.elysium-global.com/en/

Comsol Multiphysics Update Includes New Sketching Tool

October 9, 2019 By Jean Thilmany Leave a Comment

Comsol is set to release Comsol Multiphysics Version 5.5 in November 2019. In this version, the Design Module offers a new sketching tool for easier creation and more versatile parametric control of geometry models, says Daniel Bertilsson, technology manager for mathematics and computer science at Comsol.

Comsol Multiphysics offers tools for engineering modeling, simulation, application, and deployment. It solves for multiple physical effects at the same time.

The company made the update announcement at its annual Comsol Conference held in October in Boston.

New and updated solvers speed a range of simulations. Two new add-on products, the Porous Media Flow Module and the Metal Processing Module, further expand on the product’s suite of multiphysics tools.

The new sketching tool makes it easier to assign dimensions and constraints to planar drawings for 2D modeling and 3D work planes.

“We’ve carefully integrated the new dimensions and constraints tool in the Model Builder so it becomes a natural part of the Comsol Multiphysics workflow,” Bertilsson says. “The new tools for dimensions and constraints can be used together with model parameters in Comsol to drive the simulation, whether for a single run, parametric sweep, or parametric optimization.”

Acoustics Simulations

Another update—new solver technology for acoustics simulations—is a nod to ultrasound technology becoming increasingly important in a range of applications from process engineering and nondestructive testing to consumer electronics.

Other new functionality—based on the time-explicit discontinuous Galerkin method—enables efficient multicore computation of ultrasound propagation in solids and fluids. This includes realistic materials featuring damping and anisotropy. The method also has low-frequency applications, such as in seismology. The multiphysics capability included in this new functionality can seamlessly combine linear elastic wave propagation in a solid and its transition to a fluid, as an acoustic pressure wave, and back again.

The new elastic wave functionality is available for users of the Structural Mechanics Module, MEMS Module, and Acoustics Module. The fluid-structure acoustics coupling is available in the Acoustics Module.

Porous Media Flow Module

This module gives users within industries such as food, pharmaceutical, and biomedical a range of transport analysis capabilities for porous media, trying, and transport in fractures. The flow modules cover linear and nonlinear flow in saturated and variably saturated media with special options for slow and fast porous media flows. The multisphycis simulation capabilities are extensive, with functionality that includes options for calculating effective thermal properties for multicomponent systems, poroelasticity, and transport of chemical species in solid, liquid, and gas phases.

Other highlights of this upgrade include:

Import and export of the 3D printing and additive manufacturing formats PLY and 3MF.
Multiple spectral bands for radiation in participating media
Lumped thermal systems equivalent circuits
Combined full wave and ray optics simulations
Minimum-sized standalone application files with Comsol Compiler
Compressible Euler flow and nonisothermal large eddy simulations
Editing tools for repair of STL, PLY, and 3MR files

Comsol Update Includes New Sketching Tool

October 9, 2019 By Jean Thilmany Leave a Comment

Comsol Multiphysics offers tools for engineering modeling, simulation, application, and deployment. It solves for multiple physical effects at the same time.

The company made the update announcement at its annual Comsol Conference held in October in Boston.

The new sketching tool makes it easier to assign dimensions and constraints to planar drawings for 2D modeling and 3D work planes.

Acoustics Simulations

Porous Media Flow Module

Other highlights of this upgrade include:

Import and export of the 3D printing and additive manufacturing formats PLY and 3MF.
Multiple spectral bands for radiation in participating media
Lumped thermal systems equivalent circuits
Combined full wave and ray optics simulations
Minimum-sized standalone application files with Comsol Compiler
Compressible Euler flow and nonisothermal large eddy simulations
Editing tools for repair of STL, PLY, and 3MR files

Wind River offers new release of VxWorks

October 8, 2019 By Leslie Langnau Leave a Comment

Wind River announced the latest release of its real-time operating system (RTOS) VxWorks, which has ensured the security, safety, and deterministic performance of embedded applications for more than 30 years. The latest release redefines embedded software development with new capabilities to drive greater business value, innovation, and productivity.

As the industry rapidly transforms with systems moving from automated to autonomous, there’s a demand for a new approach that enables engineers to use today’s mainstream tools and programming languages for innovating. VxWorks empowers developers of all backgrounds with popular programming languages and libraries, along with cloud-based development tools and infrastructures to create mission-critical applications that require the highest levels of security and safety.

The latest release of VxWorks includes:

• Support for C++17, Boost 1.70.0, Python 3.8, and Rust
• LLVM-based infrastructure which enables support for a broad set of modern and productive tools and frameworks
• Open source board support packages (BSPs) such as Raspberry Pi and TI Sitara AM65x for quick prototyping and flexibility of choice
• OpenSSL 1.1.1 for the most up-to-date cryptography libraries

Complementing VxWorks is Wind River Labs, which offers access to VxWorks–compatible new technologies and collaborative software projects, proof-of-concepts, open source integrations, pre-release and experimental software, including ROS 2, OpenCV, and IoT SDKs for public cloud providers to name a few.

Wind River
www.windriver.com
www.windriver.com/announces/vxworks