By Evan Yares, Senior Editor & Analyst, Software Adams/Machinery makes analyst-level simulation practical for the rest of us. For engineers who build high-performance machinery, today’s CAD systems are a mixed bag. Most mainstream CAD programs include tools to evaluate part interference, and do kinematic motion studies. They often include closely integrated FEA, for studying linear…
Optimizing Fluid System Design with Early CFD
Mentor Graphics couples its tools for component and system-level CFD CFD was once the exclusive realm of analysts with deep theoretical backgrounds and extensive experience. While those analysts still rule the realm, they’re no longer alone. The growth of early (often called “upfront” or “concurrent”) CFD tools has opened the field up to a new…
Do you really need integrated CAD/CAM?
By Evan Yares, Senior Editor & Analyst, Software Why you may—and may not—want to consider an integrated solution. There’s a simple question you can answer that will help you figure out whether you should consider using an integrated CAD/CAM system: Is your current CAM system the biggest source of frustration in your work life? If…
Free CAD Software for Engineers and Designers
Free CAD software shouldn’t have to break the bank. There are thousands of kinds of free CAD software available. Possibly tens of thousands. But there are far fewer free programs in the CAD realm—if only because CAD software is incredibly difficult to create. Here are three free CAD software programs that offer something really special.…
3D Printing Solutions that Make the Design Process Flow
Using Objet’s rapid prototype technology, ISO 9001:2008 company Griswold Controls has developed techniques with 3D printing and rapid prototyping that minimize the time and costs to develop new products. This webinar covers the major areas of impact potential for your customers, suppliers, manufacturing team and what every stakeholder desires; a healthy bottom line to strengthen…
Fixing the CAD/CAE Disconnect
One of the biggest impediments to the use of digital simulation and analysis in product development is the disconnection between CAD and CAE. This disconnection creates process roadblocks that push simulation and analysis out of the design process, and relegate it to the role of late-stage validation, where it can provide little more than go/no-go…
3D PDF is important again
The best choice for 3D data exchange, collaboration, and archiving may be a format that almost died a few years ago. The PDF format was invented by Adobe over 18 years ago. It’s grown to become the de-facto worldwide standard for the reliable distribution, exchange, and archiving of electronic documents. Yet, there was some doubt…
Simulation-Led Design Using SolidWorks® and COMSOL Multiphysics®
Multiphysics has earned the reputation as an excellent approach for simulation in engineering and science. Applying multiphysics simulation early in the product development process brings you reliable computer models to verify and optimize your designs This webinar will demonstrate how the COMSOL LiveLink for SolidWorks bridges the gap between design and analysis, integrating real-world simulation…
Organic Shape Modeling for Engineers
Reprint info >> When you think about things that are hard to model in a CAD system, you don’t often think of common products, such as jewelry, toys, sporting goods, and hardware. Yet, within these product categories you’ll find many items that incorporate organic (or free-form) shapes that present some serious modeling challenges. Historically, CAD…
Meshless FEA: A new way to solve linear static FEA problems
Finite Element Analysis has been around for a long time. Better than 50 years. Though it took awhile for computers to catch up with the processing and memory demands of FEA, today’s average PC is up to the task, even for challenging problems. Why, then, is FEA still thought of by many engineers as a…
Math for Engineers: A Look at Mathcad Prime 2.0 and Maple 16
Engineers tend to fall in love with their tools. Or, at least, they tend to stick with the tools they’re familiar with. Look on any engineer’s computer, and you’ll see a pretty predictable set of office and productivity tools, and, often, a CAD, CAM, or CAE program. When an engineer runs across a new problem,…
Sophisticated CNC Shapes State-of-the-art Implants
According to statistics, the number of artificial bone implants continues to increase. In 2010, one million artificial hip and knee joints were implanted in the U.S. Forecasts expect this number to exceed four million by 2030. German-based Implantcast Corp. produces titanium implants on turning-milling centers equipped with Siemens Sinumerik 840 computer numerically controlled (CNC) units.…
Optimizing the Design of an F1 Brake Cooling Duct
If you were going to pick a challenging use case for CFD software, you couldn’t do much better than Formula 1 racing. It’s a high-stakes game, with fast development cycles, and even faster feedback on failures. Every two weeks during the season, F1 teams get a reality check on their engineering. As a practical matter,…
Electrical Design for SolidWorks Users
Reprint Info >> In the realm of ECAD, several companies have taken advantage of the SolidWorks developer program and created useful tools that make building complex electro-mechanical systems much easier. If you’re a SolidWorks user, you know that it has really good built-in tools for electrical, hydraulic, and pneumatic routing. Or at least, you should…
Software Implementation Drives New Business
Goster is a Polish design and contracting company whose main business is manufacturing state-of-the-art mining machinery. Its engineers use Solid Edge software because the tool can handle innovative designs and modifications that are required during every stage of product development. Using the software, Goster also developed designs and related documentation faster than its traditional 2D…
Real World Nonlinear Mechanical Applications
Until recently, most finite element analysis (FEA) applications undertaken by design engineers were limited to linear analysis which provides an acceptable approximation of real-life characteristics for most problems. However, occasionally more challenging problems arise that call for a nonlinear approach. In this webinar, you will hear about real-world nonlinear applications and case studies associated with…
Braille Labeler Receives Cool Idea! Award from Proto Labs
The latest deserving idea to receive the Proto Labs Cool Idea! Award, is a Braille labeler by Silicon Valley-based innovation laboratory 6dot. The labeler aims to solve a persistent challenge among the 37 million people around the world without sight: identifying everyday objects. To a blind person, navigating familiar environments can be a tremendous obstacle,…
Hydraulic Cylinder Performance Enhanced with Crack Simulation
Much like a human arm with interconnected bones, muscles, and tendons, earth moving equipment components must harness a complex array of parts to perform in perfect synchrony. Key to an earth mover’s fluid movements is an array of hydraulic cylinders, located along the boom, arm and bucket, that act as actuators to convert hydraulic energy…
Unmanned Space Vehicle Gets Rapid Redesign
By Edited by: Laura Carrabine, Senior Editor NASA uses an innovative and cost-effective unmanned aircraft to gather earth science data around the world. It was designed by the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory and developed at NASA’s Ames Research Center. The Systems Integration Evaluation Remote Research Aircraft (SIERRA) is routinely deployed for environmental collection missions over…
Experience FirePro! Sweepstakes
AMD believes their new line of FirePro cards and drivers are more stable and more reliable than any other graphics solution out there. But they want to hear unbiased reality from end users – from the single designer using PhotoShop CS5 to the multi-person CAD shop using a range of DCC and CAD/CAE apps. Here…
Parametric or Direct Modeling, One or the Other, or Both?
Reprint Info >> Here are a few reasons why combining parametric and direct CAD offer benefits to you, your team, and the products you create. There are a few differences between parametric and direct modeling. The parametric paradigm provides an “engineer it” approach to design which requires you to anticipate and define feature constraints, relations,…
Reversing Perceptions: How to Make Hearing Aids “Cool”
Thanks to innovators like the late Steve Jobs, the look and feel of a design is just as important as the technology behind it. Take hearing aids, for example. Most people who need them refuse to wear them because they have a functional appearance that, to the users, implies a defect. The common thought about…
Reshaping faces with Custom Implants
The Centre for Applied Reconstructive Technologies in Surgery (CARTIS) recently created a digitally-based method of designing and fabricating a patient-specific orbital floor and rim implant for a patient who had a rare form of facial cleft affecting her eye socket. The right eye was non-seeing, immobile, turned inwards, and more than 1 cm lower than…
Misumi Introduces New Online EZ Product Finder
MISUMI USA, Inc. announces the launch of its EZ Product Finder. The Flash-based application, accessible through the MISUMI Web site, provides design engineers with a well-organized visual index to all of the company’s Factory Automation components. With intuitive, catalog-like navigation, the application allows users to quickly locate products of interest and offers a snapshot view…
CAD Practices On the Cloud
Although cloud computing is an emerging field of computer science, the idea has been around for a few years. Cloud computing is ideally suited for engineering departments because it provides immediate access to flexible, real-time, high-performance computing resources configured in a way designers, engineers, and analysts need it, when they need it on a pay-as-you-go…