Siemens PLM Software’s new machine design solution to improve development time and quality

Siemens PLM Software announced a new integrated machine design solution aimed at creating value for companies that develop and market machine tools and production machines. Mechatronics Concept Designer™NX™ software and works with Teamcenter® software. represents a paradigm shift for the industry with a new systems engineering approach to machine design that captures “voice of the customer” input, manages early requirements and facilitates the simultaneous definition and simulation of the complex mechanical, electrical, and automation software found in today’s increasingly complex machine tools. With an easy-to-use, interactive simulation capability based on “gaming” technology, Mechatronics Concept Designer can help reduce development time and improve product quality for the global machine design industry. Mechatronics Concept Designer is based on groundbreaking “gaming” technology, Mechatronics Concept Designer can help significantly reduce development time and improve product quality for the global machine design industry.

The development process in the machine tool industry requires experts from several different disciplines, including mechanical, electrical, and software design, to develop a complex machine to the specific requirements of each individual customer. Traditional software tools don’t take requirements into account, and the lack of a “common language” has made it difficult for these disciplines to integrate with each other until the end of the design process when changes are more costly, both in time and money. This fragmented set of design applications combined with the complexity of the machines, has made it virtually impossible to simulate and evaluate various design concepts to support rapid and effective product development decision making.

Mechatronics Concept Designer enables mechanical, electrical, and software/automation disciplines to work in parallel. It includes all the mechanical design features of NX while enabling the user to develop a list of sensors and actuators which can be easily selected and positioned, laying the foundation for the electrical engineers to create the layout plan. And more efficient software development is supported through the ability to make the machine’s sequence of operations available in a standard format common in the machinery industry.

The company reports that Mechatronics Concept Designer delivers an end-to-end machine design solution with an integrated systems engineering approach. At the beginning of the development cycle, designers can use the Teamcenter requirements management and systems engineering capabilities to build a functional model that ensures customer requirements are incorporated into the design.

Mechatronics Concept Designer also includes a state-of-the-art modeling and simulation capability based on NVIDIA® PhysX® technology. This physics engine, developed with the PhysX SDK from NVIDIA, is similar to the software technology used in many of today’s modern video games. This approach to simulation makes it easy to quickly create and interactively validate alternative design concepts. In addition, the user is able to interact with the digital machine model while the simulation is running, providing the ability to test the effects of different inputs in real time. The ability to model real-world physical behavior in the virtual world, based on simplified mathematical models, enables early concept verification that helps detect and correct errors when they are least expensive to resolve.

Siemens
www.siemens.com/plm

::Design World::