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Nastran

Autodesk Acquires NEi Nastran Solver

May 19, 2014 By Barb Schmitz Leave a Comment

It seems as it the rate of acquisitions and strategic mergers and partnerships is at a fevered pitch right now. In the 3D printing world, it seems like companies are gobbling up other companies nearly daily. The end result of acquisitions is often a mixed bag. Often promising technologies coming out of smaller companies seem to completely fall off the map when purchased by bigger brethren.

Simulation becomes important piece of product design puzzle

More and more companies are reaping significant time-to-market boosts and increased product quality benefits from using simulation tools earlier in the development cycle. By reducing the number of physical prototypes that need to be built, these same companies are also significantly cutting design costs and still designing better products.

Not longer the domain of analysts and specialists, mid-range simulation tools are increasing being targeted at design engineers using so-called mid-range CAD systems, such as Inventor, SolidWorks, Solid Edge and Creo.

Autodesk moves to add Nastran to its CAE lineup

Last week, Autodesk announced that it had acquired the Nastran solver from NEi Software. To be clear, this is not the Nastran that was based on the original NASA-sponsored code. NEi Nastran, however, is often benchmarked against the original Nastran as well as ANSYS and Abacus.

Though the company has yet to unveil its plans for the software, it is speculated that the company will add the solver’s powerful linear and nonlinear as well as dynamic response capabilities to the other solvers the company has acquired in recent years. These include those from Algor, Moldflow and CFDesign.

This image shows the behavior of a metal structure (top image) as well as the top layer matrix and fiber failure indexes of a composite structure (middle and bottom image).
This image shows the behavior of a metal structure (top image) as well as the top layer matrix and fiber failure indexes of a composite structure (middle and bottom image).

Solvers are the brains behind CAE software. They solve huge matrices with various algorithms for memory management, matrix simplification and rearrangement, and convergence tolerances.

Not much as been released in terms of details of what Autodesk has in store for the NEi Nastran solver, which has been traditionally aimed at the high-end, nonlinear user base, not design engineers. As a result, many questions remain unanswered. Not only what are Autodesk’s plans with the solver but how will partner relationships be handled? What will happen to the employees at NEi?

We’ll have to stayed tuned for the answers to those questions, but this acquisition is yet more evidence of how simulation technology is posed to become a tool–and competitive weapon–that that every company will be deploying in the years ahead.

Barb Schmitz

Filed Under: News Tagged With: Autodesk, FEA, Nastran, simulation

Leader in hydropower equipment seeks world-class advantage

September 14, 2011 By Laura Carrabine Leave a Comment

The Flovel Group is a hydropower equipment supplier that provides turnkey solutions for small- and medium-sized hydropower projects. Business units include Flovel Energy Pvt. Ltd., which specializes in the entire range of hydropower equipment and services for design, engineering, manufacturing, installation, and servicing for all heads and outputs covering all types of turbines, and TB Hydro Flovel Valves Pvt. Ltd., which designs and manufactures a variety of inlet, shut-off, regulating, and air valves for turbines.

At one point, Flovel’s management began to look for product development technology that was adept at accelerating the release of highly customized, innovative new products to market, while at the same time being able to ensure the high quality and rigorous accuracy required by its customer base.

To meets its requirements, Flovel selected  products from Siemens PLM Software including Solid Edge, Teamcenter Express, NX, and Femap with NX Nastran. Solid Edge is used for CAD to design complex turbine parts. Flovel based this decision on the software’s ability to handle sophisticated designs, 2D functionality, and sheet metal handling capabilities. Based on the successful use of Solid Edge at Flovel, the company is looking to leverage the product in other areas, including CAE, CAM, and product lifecycle management (PLM).

Using Solid Edge, Flovel has improved its overall design methodology (concept to prototype to product) and cut costs (due to a better understanding of 3D conceptual prototypes). The company cites outstanding ease of use compared to traditional approaches to design, noting that the user-friendly Solid Edge is fostering idea generation and innovation. Flovel also gives Solid Edge praise for superior searching options for making assemblies and points out that the visualization capabilities of Solid Edge measurably accelerates the handling of large assemblies.

Once Solid Edge was in place, Flovel implemented the second step in its product development initiative by adopting Teamcenter Express as its collaborative product data management (cPDM) solution. The goal was to establish a scalable cPDM solution that would facilitate collaboration between all of the key disciplines in the company’s product development operations. The procurement team selected Teamcenter Express for its visualization and collaboration capabilities, strong multi-CAD and multi-site support capabilities, and the ability to streamline the company’s design process. With Teamcenter Express, the company wanted its planning, design, engineering, and production departments to establish a synchronized engineering database with design information that users could easily access, share, and exchange on a secure and controlled basis.

Other goals for Teamcenter Express included establishing drawing number controls and materials codes, identifying the latest versions of their design information, and disseminating information in standard workflow-driven design processes. The company wanted standard, up-to-date information, such as what is contained in product catalogs, quality standards, manuals and plans, to be kept in Teamcenter Express for immediate access. Beyond this, Flovel engaged Teamcenter Express to manage released design information so that it can be leveraged by all of the company’s business units and their manufacturing operations for purposes of improving its CAM and CNC machining processes.

Flovel has extended its design process capabilities by implementing NX which is enabling designers to model difficult surfaces such as runner blades more easily. The company has also implemented Femap with NX Nastran. The intent of this deployment is CAE design optimization.

Currently, Flovel is using Femap with NX Nastran to analyze complex components. The company is performing finite element analysis (FEA) on turbine components for customized applications and operating conditions, as well as using the software to verify designs developed using conventional design tools. In addition, Flovel plans to extend its use of Teamcenter Express to other organizations and integrate the company’s enterprise resource planning (ERP) system into its product development initiative.

Siemens PLM Software                       

www.siemens.com/plm

Flovel

www.flovel.com

Filed Under: 3D CAD Package Tips, CAD Blogs, CAD Industry News, Siemens Blogs, Siemens PLM, Simulation Software Tagged With: cad, Femap, Nastran, NX, PLM, Siemens PLM Software, Solid Edge, Teamcenter, turbines

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